


'tis a far far better thing doing stuff for other people

by whichisgolden



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichisgolden/pseuds/whichisgolden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The X-Men: First Class Clueless AU that you didn't know you always wanted. Charles is a spoiled Beverly Hills telepath, Erik is his pretentious ex-step-brother, Emma is his best friend because they both know what it feels like for people to be jealous of them, etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'tis a far far better thing doing stuff for other people

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: Charles is 17 during this story, and wildly insensitive about pretty much everything.
> 
> Apologies for the rather arbitrary aging-up and de-aging. This hasn't been beta'd, so please comment if you catch something!

So, okay. Yes, he was a telepath, but otherwise, Charles led a totally normal life for a teenager. The only other weird thing about him, which he personally didn’t think was so terribly weird, was that he hadn’t learned how to drive a car when he was sixteen. He had been busy that year, and then he didn’t want to insult his chauffeur.

“But really, Charles, it’s an important skill to have,” Sharon said. She was sitting behind her wide oak desk, with a little black box in front of her. Charles had read her mind the second he saw it; he couldn’t stop smiling and kept rolling forward in his seat. “Think of this as a pre-graduation present. Go on.”

Charles grabbed the box and opened it. The fact that the car keys weren’t a surprise didn’t detract from his glee. “Oh, thank you, Mother!” He jumped to his feet and went around to kiss her on the cheek. “It’s just the perfect thing to learn on!”

Sharon held his gaze, giving him her most authoritative look. “I expect you to take good care of the car, Charles, and get your license before the end of the school year.”

“Of course I will. I’m an excellent driver.” He had only technically driven a car on two occasions, but they were a great two occasions. “And, Mother, you should really put some orange juice in there, at least.” He gestured to the tumbler of vodka by her right hand. “It’s an easy way to stock up on vitamin C, which is really important for your immune system.”

“Thank you, dear, I’ll take it under consideration.” Sharon patted his cheek and smiled sardonically. “Now go, I have work to do.” Sharon was a high-profile corporate lawyer who dabbled in divorces; she did all four of her own, quite successfully.

Charles grabbed his backpack and went outside, waving at the gardener trimming the hedges into perfect squares, the way Sharon liked. Waiting at the end of the driveway was his Mercedes, a CL600 in Palladium silver, exactly like the picture he had pointedly shown Sharon a few months earlier.

He sat down in the driver’s seat with a happy sigh and texted Emma: ‘i’m coming to pick you up. i have a surprise’.

Emma had been Charles’s best friend since childhood; they were both telepaths, and popular, so they had always gotten along famously. She was the one who harangued him the most about not knowing how to drive, especially since they lived in Los Angeles; he couldn’t wait to see her drool over his new car.

What she actually said when he pulled up in front of her house was, “Nice wheels. Is Sharon getting married again?”

“It’s a pre-graduation present, actually.” He hadn’t yet gotten the hang of how much pressure to put on the pedals, so they shot away from the curb a bit too quickly. “By the way, all white again? Have you no respect for the passing of Labor Day?”

“I’m not taking fashion advice from someone who looks like they sell Bibles.” Emma glanced at him over her sunglasses. “Do you know your emergency brake is on?”

Charles laughed and casually pressed it down. “Of course!” He paused at a stop sign, and then said, “Should I unbutton another button? I want to look mature, unlike every other Neanderthal in cargo shorts at our school.”

“Charles, there’s a wide and fertile valley of fashion choices between cargo shorts and what you’re — Charles. You know red means stop, right?”

“It was yellow when I got there!”

Emma laughed and dug at his memory, so that the image of the red light he had sped through unfurled again in his mind. “There are two pedals for a reason, Charles.”

“Whatever, we’re here.” He screeched to a halt in the parking lot, and then slid, pretty smoothly, into a spot next to Azazel’s black BMW. He did have to crawl over the gearshift and go out the passenger side door, as he couldn’t get his own open far enough, but Emma didn’t even bother to tease him, just shook her head.

He walked with Emma only as far as the courtyard, where Janos intercepted her. They went off in a flurry of pointed, icy looks; they had all their worst fights mentally.

He waved good-bye at her retreating back and went off to the vending machines, where he tricked someone into leaving their Coke behind, only because Charles never had change on him.

With five minutes before class, he sat on a bench underneath one of the ugly trees haphazardly placed around campus to enjoy his Coke. He certainly didn’t begrudge Emma her boyfriend, but he did wish she spent less time arguing with him, and maybe a little less time with him all together. Charles supposed he could get a girlfriend if he wanted to, but the worst part about being a telepath was that everyone became so boring so quickly, especially teenagers.

Angel came and told him it was time for Debate, which was unspeakably kind of her, so he kept his arm around her shoulders as they walked inside. “Angel, how are you?” he said, and tried to focus very hard on her answer.

“I’m fine. I don’t have my oral presentation until tomorrow, which is lucky because I was working all weekend. You should come to the restaurant some time. It’s a pretty nice place, and I could get you a discount.” She grinned up at him. He technically wasn’t supposed to use his powers at school, and most of his classmates had picked up some defenses over the years, but he could still feel the golden beam of _like_ coming from her.

“That sounds lovely. I’m sure you’re a great waitress.” He winked at her as they took their seas.

-

“Xavier?”

Charles had honestly only zoned out for a second. Sean, who sat in front of him in Debate, was high and his hazy, circular thoughts were oozing everywhere. Charles could hardly ignore it all class, and honestly, the school was supposed to help him expand his powers, not limit them.

“Mr. Summers?” he said, hopefully.

Mr. Summers scowled at him. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he was upset with Charles or not, because his face always looked like that; Charles found this particularly galling because teachers usually loved him.

“It’s time for your oral presentation, Xavier.” Oh, right. Had he done that? He didn’t think so. Azazel was already up at one of the podiums in the front of the class, smirking at him. “The topic is mutant separatism. You have two minutes.”

Charles walked slowly up to the podium, smiling beatifically at his fellow classmates. “Thank you, Mr. Summers, and might I say that this class has really opened my mind to, you know, dueling view points.”

Mr. Summers said nothing. Charles chose to take it as encouragement. “Well, it’s all very well for us to talk about this in our primarily mutant high school, but really, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get along with humans. My mother is a human, and a terrifying one at that, but I live with her every day. And most humans are less terrifying than her, although not all mutants are as charming as me.” Smile. “So, in conclusion, let’s all strive to be the best humans or mutants we can be, and I don’t think we’ll have to separate ourselves. Thank you.”

Riotous applause, as always. Mr. Summers sighed. “Azazel? Response?”

Charles propped both elbows up on his podium and beamed over at his clearly crushed competition.

Azazel cleared his throat. “When I was younger, human children would throw rocks at me and call me the devil. Sometimes mutants need to be separated for their own protection.”

Charles rolled his eyes. It was so cheap to do the emotional appeal. Debates should be about logic. He looked to Mr. Summers for confirmation, but he was just sighing and rubbing his temples.

“Both of you sit down. Let’s move on.”

The day continued to drag. Mr. Muñoz, whose version of history class was primarily current events, talked at length about environmental degradation and suggested they all replace their cars with bikes. Charles asked if Vespas were okay, and couldn’t get a straight answer out of him. But really, Charles hadn’t ridden a bike since he was seven, and barely even then, plus he had almost killed a biker in his car just that morning and he didn’t want to die this young. Mr. Muñoz seemed unimpressed with these arguments.

“Charles, I take a bike to school every day,” he said, and Charles decided against saying that, yes, but Mr. Muñoz was a _teacher_ , so it was completely different. He caught Angel’s eye and made a face; she giggled furtively into her hand.

Charles’s next class was Skills Development, which was with Emma. Skills Development was supposed to be the class in which they “further developed the potential power of their mutations” (according to the school’s pamphlet), but really they just hung around the tennis courts and got yelled at by Logan for slacking off. Logan was this enormous man with horrible sideburns who never wore proper shirts and could make metal stick out of his hands. Charles didn’t think he had ever gotten any training to be a teacher, and he certainly didn’t seem like the kind of man to end up in a school, but whenever he asked Logan about his past he was told to stop being a nosy runt.

He was in a particularly foul mood that day, and came charging up to Charles and Emma and asked them what they thought they were doing.

“What exactly are you looking for, sir?” Sure, he and Emma were just laying out in the sunny patch of the tennis courts, but they were telepathic. They could practice telepathy anywhere. And Logan was immune to it, so he had no way of knowing if they were training or not. “We’re meditating in order to sharpen our mental reflexes, and we’re getting Vitamin D at the same time. It’s wrong the way they coop us up in that musty school all day, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”

“This time is really like a whetstone for the mind,” Emma said, completely flat.

Logan opened his mouth to begin berating them, when the secretary appeared with something blue. Charles propped himself up on his elbows and squinted. It was a girl, albeit a very mutant girl.

 _Oh my_ , Emma whispered quietly into his mind with a giggle. _What a look_. Other than the fact that she was blue, she was also wearing the most hideous outfit, Charles was confident, that any person had ever assembled: loose brown pants and a yellow t-shirt, with a green and blue checkered button-up tied around her waist.

 _I hope she’s gelled her hair and that’s not just it’s natural texture_ , Charles whispered back. Logan was barking at the girl, who was mostly staring at his feet and nodding along. _Oh, she’s so cute, though._

 _Charles, don’t. She’s a mess._ Emma emphasized her point by mentally pinching him, a trick she had just recently learned and refused to teach Charles; he hadn’t quite got the hang of replicating sensations yet.

 _We can help her, Emma! We could change her life!_ Charles had been feeling aimless recently, ever since he finished organizing and cataloguing his wardrobe last week.

Emma rolled her eyes, but he felt her grudging acceptance. _It’s your funeral._

Immediately, Charles sat up and waved at the girl. “Hey, you. Come here!”

She grinned and came over, sitting down across from Charles; he was nearly bowled over by her wave of relief. “Hi, I’m Raven.”

“I’m Charles Xavier, and this is Emma. We’re both telepathic. What do you do? Or are you just...” He drifted off, and then smiled his kind, welcoming smile at her, which he didn’t get to use often enough.

“No, no, I can change shapes!” She immediately shifted, her blue scales expanding and then disappearing, until she was a perfect replica of Logan, who was across the yard trying to get Angel to come down from the roof of the gym.

Charles might have squealed a little bit, but it was amazing. “That is the coolest thing I’ve seen all day! Can you do anyone? Can you do animals? Can you do inanimate objects?”

“Sweetie, if you can look like anyone, why do you walk around all... blue?” Emma asked carefully, pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head. “No offense.”

Raven shrugged, returning to her natural form. “I can’t really hold the shapes all day, it’s too tiring.”

“Well, as groovy as you look now, maybe Emma and I could help you... train. And we can help you in other ways, too. We’re great friends, really, and everyone will like you if we like you!” Charles thought this was fair because they were telepathic, and they could get a sense of someone’s character immediately. Like how he knew now that Raven was the sweetest. “What do you say?”

“Okay.” Raven grinned at them eagerly. “But, are you guys going to read my mind all the time?”

Charles glanced at Emma, confused. “Well, it’s hard for us... not to.” When Raven’s brow furrowed, he quickly added, “But we’ll try not to, if you don’t want us to. If we’re friends.” He congratulated himself on thinking of this so quickly.

“Cool. So, do we train now? Is that guy supposed to be training us?” She shifted briefly back into Logan, and made a face.

“Logan is just the most egregious example of this school’s failings.” Emma dropped her sunglasses back on her nose and sniffed, dissatisfied with everything around her.

Charles leaned forward. “Can you do me?”

Raven shifted, first into Charles and Emma, and then into the rest of their classmates, until the period was over and they had to go to lunch.

“Thank you for an excellent lesson, sir!” Charles shouted to Logan as they trailed out, who shouted back something much less complimentary.

-

Charles loved giving the tour and explaining how their school worked, and Raven was the perfect audience, nodding and laughing at all the right times. He pointed out all the major social groups: the kids who ran the newspaper; the theater kids; the Mutant-Human Alliance group; the Mutant Separatist group; the kids who ran the other, worse newspaper; the tiny cluster of humans; the stoners on the grassy knoll.

“There’s my boyfriend,” Emma said, nodding to where Janos was sitting with Azazel and the other, most popular guys, sounding as if she were pointing out the car whose alarm was going off.

“If you’re going to date a high school boy, those are really the only good ones, unfortunately.” Charles took Raven by the elbow and led her to their customary table in the middle of the courtyard. “Of course, you don’t have to settle, if you don’t see anything you like.”

“Lord knows Charles never will,” Emma said, with a vicious little smile. “He’s picky.”

Raven laughed as Charles hotly defended himself. “I’m going to get food. Can I get you guys anything?”

“No, thank you.” Charles beamed at her as she left, then turned to Emma, still beaming.

“I’ll admit, I actually like her. It must be sun poisoning.” She sighed loudly; Emma hated liking people, and hated even more when Charles was right.

Charles laughed happily to himself and fished his protein bar out of his backpack. “She’s great. But more importantly, do you think I’ve gained weight? I skipped my morning run two days in a row, I’m horrible.”

“I doubt that would have a visible impact on your body, Charles, but I know how you feel. I had cake yesterday for my mother’s birthday.” She wrinkled her nose. “I feel like I shouldn’t eat for a week.”

Charles nodded sympathetically. “It’s the frosting. I think I might do a cleanse.” He had just read about an apple cider vinegar diet in one of his mother’s magazines, which he had brought with him to show Emma.

Raven reappeared a few minutes later with a tray full of greasy food, all in a tizzy over some guy she had met. “He said he liked my colors, and that he has a physical mutation too, and that my cellular structure is probably magnificent!” She collapsed in a happy heap, nearly knocking Charles’s magazine to the ground.

“Who was this guy?” Charles asked, not bothering to keep the concern out of his voice. “Show us?”

Raven shifted, into, God, Hank McCoy. Charles actually gasped.

“Dear Lord, I prefer you blue,” Emma said, sliding away from Raven-as-Hank.

Raven returned to her natural form. “He’s really nice, guys!”

“I’m sure he is!” Charles put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Best to nip this in the bud. “But, Raven, you’re friends with me and Emma now. You can do so much better than him. He’s a bit of a, well, a nerd, to be quite honest. And, anyway, you’re just starting your new life here, so you shouldn’t settle down so quickly.”

Raven seemed to understand, and finished her lunch quietly, her mind whirling, no doubt absorbing and internalizing Charles’s advice.

-

After school that day, they took Raven to the mall. Emma said Charles wasn’t allowed to help pick anything out, because he dressed like a thirteen year old on his first date, and Charles said Emma wasn’t allowed to help, because she didn’t understand how colors worked due to an undiagnosed neurological condition, but Raven ended up with several paper bags full of clothes anyway, which Charles insisted on paying for as a first-day-of-being-friends gift.

Even better, Raven switched back and forth between being Charles and Emma to play them off one another the entire time, which Charles didn’t realize for a full hour, and then was delighted beyond measure. “You’re amazing!” he said, and kissed Raven/Emma’s cheek. She blushed blue.

Emma insisted on driving Charles’s Mercedes to drop them both off, because she said they had all gambled with their lives enough for one day. When they pulled up to Raven’s scary-looking apartment building, Charles immediately offered for her and her family to come live with him. She just laughed and thanked him for the clothes.

“Practice staying in form! And try doing different animals! See you tomorrow!” Charles shouted after her. She waved to him and disappeared into the rotating doors. “Do you think there are criminals in there, or just on the street?” he asked Emma as they sped away.

-

Charles’s good mood was immediately destroyed when he came into the kitchen for a tea and maybe some carrots to nibble on, and discovered his ex-barely-step-brother lounging in front of the open refrigerator.

“You know, that’s how our ozone layer got depleted,” Charles snapped, pulling on the handle of the refrigerator door, so that Erik almost fell into the produce drawer. Erik jerked it back away from Charles with his powers, the show-off.

“CFCs have been phased out.” Erik grinned down at him. Charles thought he must be standing on his toes; there was no way he had grown even more. “Montreal Protocol.”

“Wow, right, I forgot. You’re in college, so you’re smart now.” He elbowed Erik in the ribs and snuck out a can of Coke. “Why don’t you tell me about post-modernism next?” Erik’s snug black turtleneck and stubbly chin did nothing to convince Charles that he wasn’t becoming more of a pretentious ass by the day.

“I missed you, Charles,” Erik said, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter like a barbarian. “No one else in the world knows as much as you think you do.”

Erik Lehnsherr was Charles’s second least favorite step-siblings (of which there were seven, spread across four of his mother’s five marriages), second only to Cain Marko of two years previous. Sharon and Mr. Lehnsherr had only been married for two months, when Charles was thirteen and Erik fifteen, but Erik had never completely disappeared from their lives, and his drop-ins were always warmly welcomed by Sharon, who seemed to think he was charming and thus obviously had sustained extreme brain damage from years of alcohol abuse.

Charles had no idea why he came, since he clearly only had disdain for Charles and the way he lived. And he always took everything so seriously, apparently only happy when he was arguing with Charles; now whenever Charles saw him, his body immediately lit up with anger, heart pounding, and Erik’s annoying face and voice would keep coming back to him for hours afterward.

“I wish you would have kept on missing me, instead of coming by. Don’t you have an actual family to harass?” Charles remembered his mom saying something about — but he hadn’t been listening, he had been thinking about something else.

When Erik didn’t respond, Charles poked his head out of the refrigerator, having found the baby carrots. “What?” he said. He could sense broiling, wordless anger from Erik, even though his mind was usually tightly guarded with steel walls (walls that Charles could probably break through, if only he cared).

Erik was glaring at him with more venom than ever before. New record, Charles thought grimly. He realized somewhere in the back of his mind that he might have gone too far, but he wasn’t sure how.

“Well,” he practically spat out. Charles pretended not to notice, blithely getting a plate out of the cupboard and spilling some carrots onto it. “Well. My father is living in Germany, and my mother — my mother died last year, didn’t you know?”

Charles had a pang of gut-wrenching guilt. He peeked up at Erik, who was still glowering at him. “Oh, right, I’m so sorry. Really.” He cleared his throat. No use in being overly kind at this point. “Well, what about your stepfather?”

Erik snorted. “We’re not on good terms. And there’s no point in going all the way to Germany for every break.” He bared his teeth at Charles, in some manic attempt to smile. “Sharon was out of her mind with delight when I called to ask if I could stay.”

“Sharon is quite often out of her mind, so don’t be too flattered. Carrot?” He offered the plate to Erik briefly as he went out of the room, feeling hot and strange with shame. He would have to call his masseuse.

-

The next day, during Skills Development, he and Emma helped Raven design a more normal-looking face and body, with long blonde hair and adorably full cheeks.

“Don’t you think it’s like... hiding?” Raven said, examining her peachy pale hands.

“Not at all! Really, it’s you taking control of your life. You get to decide how people will perceive you and whether or not they know you’re a mutant.” He paused. “Also, and this is totally not the point, but you look so gorgeous that you’ll have the pick of the boys, if you want it.”

Raven shyly half-smiled at that, and he wished he could read her mind and find out who she liked, but a promise was a promise. “Anyone?” she said, hesitant.

Emma immediately sat up and narrowed her eyes. Charles had no idea how she figured things out — what people were actually trying to say — without reading their minds. “Anyone,” Emma repeated, in a slightly different tone.

“Well... I don’t know everyone yet, but I think Angel is pretty... pretty.” She flushed, flickering briefly back to her normal form before remembering herself. “If that’s cool.”

“Of _course_!” Charles was just relieved she hadn’t said Janos or Mr. Levine. “This is California, you know. Very accepting. Very cool. I’ll put a good word in for you, I don’t know if she’s into that but no harm in asking! Oh, and if she doesn’t like girls you could always shift into a boy.” At Emma’s aghast expression, he quickly added, “I’m joking, of course, you don’t have to change your gender to find someone to date. Of course.”

“Cool. If you could talk to her that would be cool.” Raven chanced a look over her shoulder, where Angel was flying in lazy circles around the court.

“It would be my pleasure!” Charles loved nothing more than a new project, after all.

-

Charles brought Raven home after school to keep training. They lifted weights and ran laps around the house, and Raven managed to keep her normal-face on the whole time, though her eyes had gone a bit gold and her mouth looked like she had been eating a blue raspberry lollipop.

As they went into the kitchen to rehydrate, Charles explained that it was important to train the mind as well as the body. “We should really keep up on current events, and read books not for school, to develop our vocabularies, if nothing else. And we also need extracurricular activities. Being on the newspaper is so boring, but I suppose we could start a club of some kind, to save the world or something.”

Unfortunately, Erik was in the kitchen again, and heard that last part. “Thank God you’re here, Charles, or the world would be fucked.” He smiled briefly at Raven, and then took a huge bite of a ridiculously proportioned sandwich.

“Good Lord. Erik, this is my dear friend Raven. Raven, this is my ex-step-brother, Erik, who, as you can see from his eating habits, was raised by wolves.” Charles snuck behind Erik and stole a bit of leftover tomato from his plate.

“It’s nice to meet you. You must be a saint if you can stand to spend time with Charles.” Erik actually winked at Raven, and she blushed bright blue. Charles would talk to her about that, those involuntary reactions were always the hardest to control. “Oh, are you a mutant?”

She responded by turning into Charles, and wiggling her (his) eyebrows. “Groovy, isn’t it?” she said, in a poor imitation of Charles’s accent.

“I don’t sound like that!” Charles squawked, but Erik and Raven were both laughing, and Raven turned to her natural blue form.

“You’re amazing, really,” Erik said. “Why don’t you walk around like that?”

Raven glanced at Charles, and then said, “Well, for training. And to, um, be in charge of what people see, when they see me. Right?” Charles nodded approvingly, handing her a Gatorade.

Erik laughed again, a little meaner. “Don’t let Charles boss you around too much. He’s got a lot of ideas, but very few of them are good.”

“Oh, I forgot to say, Erik’s in college, so he knows everything,” Charles said, hot with embarrassment and anger. “Except, obviously, how friendship works.”

“Um, okay.” Raven edged uncomfortably toward the door. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom. It’s across the hall?” When Charles nodded, she bolted.

“Erik.” He spat it like a swear word. “Could you try to behave yourself in front of company? She’s a perfectly nice girl, there’s no need to harass her.”

“Seems like you’re the one harassing her. I know you’re the one telling her she needs to look normal to fit in. Aren’t you?” Erik raised both his eyebrows expectantly, took another huge bite of his sandwich. “She’s not your Barbie doll.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. And, for your information, I’m helping her reach her full potential and get through high school in one piece. It’s a horrible place filled with mean people, Erik. I’m saving her from emotional trauma!”

Another tomato and a bit of ham fell out of Erik’s sandwich, and Charles picked them off Erik’s plate. Unfortunately, he had to stand very close to Erik again to do this. Charles decided that he must be taking steroids, as he got taller every time Charles saw him. And he smelled strange.

“Your good intentions are simply adorable,” Erik said, a tiny tendril of amusement sneaking its way out of his guarded mind. “Why don’t you try doing something not entirely selfish for once?”

“I love being condescended to, do go on,” Charles snapped back, and tore off a bit of bread from the corner of the sandwich.

“Oh, make your own!” Erik left the room, leaving Charles wobbling alone by the counter.

After a moment, he took his phone out and texted Emma, as he always did in a crisis. ‘do you think i’m selfish?’

Emma texted back, ‘Erik is a self-important asshole’, which is really all Charles wanted to hear.

Raven came back from the bathroom then, and he took her up to his room to brainstorm ideas for their extracurricular activity, and to show her his catalogued wardrobe, of course.

-

Unfortunately, Charles’s single-minded focus on Raven’s training regime was rudely interrupted by Mr. Summers’s poisonous misanthropy, or, more specifically, midterm progress reports being sent home.

He saw it in the pile of letters that the maid brought in at breakfast the next morning, and snatched it from Sharon’s hands as she was about to open it.

“Sorry, Mother, but my grades aren’t actually ready yet. This is just the first round of negotiations, so I should really look at them first.” He took the pitcher of orange juice from the middle of the table and topped off his mother’s screwdriver.

Sharon was nonplussed. “I don’t want another call about you trying to use your telepathy to improve your grades.”

“That was one time! I was horrible at creating false memories back then. Really, Mother, you always tell me not to settle!” Charles leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek and tucked the envelope into his pocket.

“Do you really think you can get your teachers to change your grades?” Erik grinned incredulously at him, though he was partially obscured by the enormous mountain of eggs and sausage he had on his plate.

Charles took a dainty bite of his whole-grain toast. “They’re all very reasonable people, Erik. A bit of friendliness goes a long way, you should try it.”

“I prefer to be judged by my actual merits,” Erik said. Charles imagined how satisfying it would be to throw a drink in his face.

Unfortunately, Sharon had the opposite reaction, smiled fondly at him. “Erik’s getting a 4.0 in his engineering program, Charles.”

“Yes, let’s not go one conversation without talking about how clever Erik is!” Charles poked his toast. “I’ve lost my appetite. If you’ll excuse me.”

Erik really wasn’t smarter than Charles, Charles thought furiously, tearing the envelope as he walked through the foyer from the sun room. Charles just had other things to think about than school. He wasn’t properly challenged, and how could he be expected to be motivated if he wasn’t challenged?

He finally got the progress report open, and had a moment of relief as he skimmed down the list of As, until he got to the ugly B at the bottom.

He texted Emma immediately: ‘we have to do something about mr summers. got a b in debate!!!! :( :(‘

‘try doing the work’ came Emma’s reply, and then a minute later, ‘and keep me out of whatever scheme you’re doubtless cooking up at this very moment’.

Charles didn’t scheme. But if Mr. Summers wouldn’t respond to reason, and he certainly wouldn’t, since all of Charles’s arguments had apparently been found wanting, Charles would have to go for the emotional appeal.

-

“The question is,” he explained to Raven, who he had seized upon by her locker when he got to school, “with whom I make him fall in love?”

“You really think that’s the way to go?” Raven asked. He was glad to see she was still blonde, despite Erik’s best efforts, though she had kept her natural eyes. And she was wearing the black mini-dress that he had bought her, which she looked absolutely stunning in.

“Yes, I’m positive. If he’s in love, he’ll be happy and less focused on making my life miserable. It’s the perfect plan!” They got to the door of Charles’s classroom, and peered in at Mr. Summers, who was glaring at a stack of papers on his desk like he wanted nothing more than to incinerate them with his laser beams.

Angel tried to walk past him into the room, but Charles hooked his arm around her shoulders and brought her into their conversation. “Angel, how beautiful are Raven’s eyes? I can hardly look at her, she’s so gorgeous.”

“Yeah, totally,” Angel agreed. As slyly as he could, he tuned into Angel’s mind and — yes, there was the flicker of interest and heat that he was looking for — so he gave her a squeeze around the shoulders as encouragement.

“Also, Raven is helping me find love for Mr. Summers, so he’s less of a fascist maniac when he grades our assignments. Isn’t that right, Raven?” Raven was blushing so much almost her entire face was blue again, and he winced. “Anyways, we better be going, haven’t we, Angel?” He made sure to give Raven a reassuring smile as he led Angel away into Debate.

-

Everything would be so much easier if Charles could just read Mr. Summers’s mind and find out who he was interested in, but the consequences were too dire if he were caught for him to risk it. And there were other ways of getting the information he wanted.

Charles left Raven and Emma sunbathing during Skills and went up to Logan. “Excuse me, sir.” Not as if Logan was doing anything productive with his time, just having Sean shout at different frequencies, but it was always best to be polite, as he was constantly telling Erik.

Logan grunted and didn’t even bother to turn his head, but that was enough. “I was just wondering if you could tell me about Mr. Summers? You see, I’m writing a oral presentation about gay marriage and I wanted to know if he might have any pre-existing biases. I know it’s wrong to formulate my argument on what he wants to hear, but I need a good grade in the class if I want to get into Oxford.” He finished this off with a big smile. “And I thought you and Mr. Summers were friends since you eat together sometimes, albeit silently as far as I can tell, so I was hoping you could tell me...”

Logan actually turned not just his head, but his entire body so that he was facing Charles, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. “What do you want to know, Xavier?”

“Is he interested in women, or, ah, men?” Charles almost felt frightened, because Logan was very imposing, although as far as he knew he wasn’t allowed to hit students. Best to play off the nerves with another devastating smile. “Out of academic interest, of course.”

“Who told you?” Logan growled, looming even closer.

“Told me what?” Charles squeaked. Other students nearby had turned to watch, but they probably wouldn’t intercede on his behalf if Logan got his claws out.

“That Alex and I — it was a one-time — never mind. Get back to work and mind your own goddamn business for once.” Charles scampered back over to where Emma and Raven were sitting, his question answered well enough.

-

The next problem was who to set Mr. Summers up with. Obviously it should be another teacher, so Charles would have as much opportunity as possible for his machinations. His first choice, now knowing that Mr. Summers was same-sex oriented, would have been Logan, him being very muscled and handsome and gruff, which was probably Mr. Summers’s type, but he didn’t want to touch that if there was a weird history there.

There were few male teachers, and most of them were cripplingly old or, in Mr. Levine’s case, cripplingly boring. But there was Mr. Muñoz... he was a bit whiny and earnest about saving the planet and getting involved in the community, but Charles could tell he had an impressive musculature under the hideous cardigans he wore, and his face was not at all bad. Yes, Mr. Muñoz was the best bet.

-

The first step, of course, was the love letter, which he wrote in a simple yet elegant silver card, crouched outside the main office after school with Raven, who made a much more eager scheming partner than Emma had ever been.

“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:  
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,  
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;  
And every fair from fair sometime declines,  
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;  
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”

Charles finished off the poem with a elegant ‘A’. “I can never remember if his first name is Alexander or Andrew, but that should work either way.” He put the pen away in his backpack and carefully extracted the single red rose that he had taken from his garden that morning. “This is by far my best plan ever.”

“That poem is so cute. Where’s it from?” Raven smiled sweetly at Angel as she walked by. Charles had to remember to make that happen as soon as he worked out the Mr. Summers situation.

“It’s Shakespeare,” Charles said proudly. “Really, Raven, it’s okay to be smart as long as no one knows about it. Quick, shift into Mr. Summers and go put this in Mr. Muñoz’s mailbox, and be furtive about it.”

“Furtive?” Raven asked, now Mr. Summers, looking at Charles with a befuddled expression that he had never seen on the real Mr. Summers.

“Secretive and what not. Go, go, go!” Raven jumped to her feet and crept into the main office, looking around with exaggerated motions, and tip toeing over to the mailboxes, where she stuffed the letter and the rose, and escaped, nodding awkwardly just as Mr. Muñoz walked in.

Charles masked him and Raven so they could watch as he opened the letter, and grinned sweetly to himself. “The greatest plan,” Charles repeated, once he and Raven had stopped giggling.

-

The next day, he slid into his seat in Debate just a minute late. Mr. Summers gave him the evil eye, as predicted. “I’m so very sorry, Mr. Summers, but I was helping a new student find her classroom. She still gets a bit turned around, new environment and everything.”

Mr. Summers took a deep breath. “Alright, I’ll forgive it this time, Xavier.”

“Why, thank you very much, sir. You know, it’s times like these that I understand why Mr. Muñoz said you were one of the smartest people he’s ever had the pleasure to know.” Behind him, he heard Angel snicker under her breath, but Mr. Summers’s face lit up, a tiny bit, for a second, so Charles counted it as a success.

-

The next step was to get as much skin exposed as possible. In History, he turned the thermostat up all the way and closed all the windows, telling Mr. Muñoz he had a terrible cold and didn’t want to debilitate his immune system any further. By the end of the class, he had succeeded in getting Mr. Muñoz to take off his mold-colored blazer, and Charles was right — great biceps.

-

“I hope you know you’re being painfully obvious,” Emma said, as he watched the main entrance to the school during lunch. Mr. Summers had to come out some time; he couldn’t possibly be pathetic enough to eat at his desk. “You’re about as subtle as a brick to the head.”

Raven, as Darth Vader, muttered, “We find your lack of faith disturbing.” Hank McCoy, who apparently had been staring at them from a table over, laughed excitedly. Raven turned back to her blonde form and smiled shyly at him.

To distract her, Charles said, “Oh, Raven, I spoke to Angel and she said she hopes you’re coming to her party tomorrow. It’s in the Valley, but we should still go, for, you know, love.”

Raven turned back to him, her face bright with excitement, so Charles had trouble feeling bad about the tiny lie. “Oh, we have to go!”

“And we’ll go shopping tomorrow after school and get you a new outfit beforehand. It’ll be splendid — Oh, there’s Mr. Summers, let’s go!” He grabbed Raven by the arm and they ran off, leaving Emma shaking her head and trying not to smile.

“Mr. Summers!” he shouted, a little too winded from the sprint across the courtyard. He really had to up his morning runs. He was getting soft, and he had plateaued at a seven and a half minute mile. “Mr. Summers, wait!”

Mr. Summers stopped walking long enough for Charles and Raven to flank him, and Charles held out the bait — a stainless steel thermos. “Mr. Summers, I accidentally switched my mother’s thermos and mine this morning. I gave her my herbal tea and took her French roast. Do you want it?” Of course, if it had really been Sharon’s, it would have been a very Irish coffee.

Mr. Summers raised his eyebrows, but didn’t seem too suspicious. “You don’t want it?” he asked, taking the thermos.

“No, I’m still growing,” he said, thinking of Erik looming over him with a little shiver of jealousy. “I was going to give it to Mr. Muñoz, because I know he loves French roast, but I couldn’t find him. If you see him, you should share it with him!”

That earned him a sharp look, but Mr. Summers just took the thermos with another thanks, and walked off.

Charles veiled himself and Raven again, and they crept after him as he wound his way around the edge of campus, until he discovered Mr. Muñoz on a shady stone bench, eating a sandwich alone. “This is perfect, this is perfect, this is perfect,” Charles whispered to Raven, unable to contain himself. She was grinning as crazily as he felt. They snuck behind a nearby tree to watch.

“Uh, excuse me... Armando? Could I join you?” Mr. Summers hovered awkwardly by the bench, turning slightly pink. Charles gripped Raven’s hand, feeling like his heart might actually lurch out of his mouth. “I have this coffee... I thought you might...”

“Oh, please, sit!” Mr. Muñoz said in a rush. “And all my friends call me Darwin.” He ducked his head, and then looked up again with a smile as Mr. Summer sat down on the other end of the bench. He took the lid off the thermos and poured some coffee into it, offering it to Mr. Muñoz first; their fingers brushed when he took it.

“What a moment,” Charles whispered to Raven, now squeezing her hand so tightly that she elbowed him in the ribs to make him let go.

They crept away again, leaving Mr. Summers and Mr. Muñoz to their coffee and stilted, delighted conversation.

-

“I am the king of everything,” he announced as he sat down at the dinner table that night. Raven had agreed to stay over, but unfortunately Erik was there again, so Lord knew if any of the rest of them would get any food. “I am Cupid, god of Love. Amor vincit omnia!”

Erik just shook his head, but he was smiling a little, so Charles pressed his luck. “You know, Erik, since I can’t imagine you get many dates, I could help you, for a small fee, of course, as my time is valuable.”

Raven giggled, but Charles couldn’t figure out why until Erik replied, sounding a bit choked, “Really, Charles, there’s no need for you to work, let alone sell your body.” He and Raven then burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Charles protested hotly, but they kept on it until Sharon finally wandered in with her martini.

“What’s so funny?” she barked. Erik and Raven struggled to contain themselves, with little success.

Desperate to change the subject, Charles introduced Raven, “My newest and dearest friend, Mother.” Sharon raised her eyebrow suggestively, so Charles added on, “Just a friend.”

“Strange, for the god of Love,” Erik murmured, and he and Raven were off laughing again.

-

Mr. Summers had actually smiled that morning, so Charles was riding high when he and Angel walked out of class. Feeling like absolutely everything would go his way, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Angel, you are looking particularly ravishing today. You know, Raven and I are greatly looking forward to your party tonight. I think it’ll be unforgettable.”

Angel laughed happily. “Yeah, it should be a good time. Plenty of booze, loud music, and my parents won’t be back all weekend.” She gave him a very meaningful look; Charles knew what it meant without even reading her mind.

“Delightful. Well, I’m off, but I’ll see you later.” He wiggled his eyebrows and practically floated away.

Emma caught up with him as he walked toward Skills. “Emma, if you have absolutely any problems at all, tell me now, because I am on a roll,” he said.

“Janos is an asshole,” she said. “Are you planning on attending Angel’s party tonight? I can drive. My trainer says no alcohol this weekend anyway.”

“Lovely. Yes, I was hoping tonight would be the night for Angel and Raven. Oh, look there!” The door to the teacher’s lounge was propped open, and inside, Mr. Muñoz and Mr. Summers were sitting on a tartan love seat. Mr. Summers was showing Mr. Muñoz something in a book, his back bent; Mr. Muñoz had one of his arms on the back of the couch behind Mr. Summers, and was pointing at something in the book and laughing.

“The world is a magical place, Emma. Perhaps I have a secondary mutation of helping people find love and happiness.” Charles sighed happily, and would have kept staring at them through the door if Emma hadn’t dragged him away by his elbow.

-

Charles came home and found the dining room stuffed with lawyers and paralegals and other boring people. Sharon stood at the head of the table like the captain of a ship, drinking out of a sleek black thermos.

“Important case?” he asked, on the verge of offering to help, having been recently blessed with the ability to solve all problems. She put her hand on his shoulder, her customary way of acknowledging his presence without looking at him or speaking to him. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to a friend’s party tonight, by the way. Good luck!” He kissed her on the cheek and left.

He did some schoolwork and tried to read a book about the political implications of mutants, but it was too dull and polemic to catch his interest. At four o’clock, he started examining his outfit options.

-

“I would hate to insult you by implying that you don’t know how maps work,” Janos said lightly, speeding through a yellow light. Emma looked ready to throw her phone at his head.

“I know where we’re going.” Emma’s tone made Charles shiver; he and Raven exchanged looks of horrified glee.

“I don’t think you do,” Janos responded. Charles was sure that his detached tone was only making things worse, but neither of them ever appreciated being given relationship advice.

“Are you sure this okay?” Raven asked Charles quietly, though Charles could have told her that trying to break the tension between Janos and Emma when they were fighting was a truly Herculean task.

Either way, he was happy to keep complimenting the red dress she was wearing, wrapped around her snugly. “You look amazing. Angel won’t be able to keep her hands off of you.”

Charles put an arm around her shoulders and she wriggled into his side. It was nice how tactile Raven was, Charles thought; he loved Emma dearly, but she didn’t like to be touched.

“You look good, too. Probably because your pants are so tight.” Charles chuckled into the top of her hair. She was right, though; he was wearing all black, and his t-shirt and his jeans left little to the imagination.

But it was a special occasion. And he looked amazing.

“Take a left. Please.” Emma sounded so angry, Charles felt a pang of relief when Janos turned left. “It’s at the end of the street.”

Janos parked on the street, and turned to smile at Emma. “Sorry for doubting you,” he said, and Emma gave him a kiss for that.

“I have no idea how it works,” Charles said to Raven, as they followed Emma and Janos, now cuddling, up the drive to Angel’s house. “I have a suit picked out that I’ll either wear to their wedding or his funeral.”

“Probably both,” Raven said, and they didn’t stop laughing even when Emma turned and gave them a dirty look.

-

Charles should have known, when he walked into the party and the first person he saw was Hank McCoy, that the night could only end in misery and ruin. At the time, though, he was just bewildered.

“Hi, Hank!” Raven said, waving too enthusiastically.

“Hi, Raven. Hi, Charles.” He was holding a red plastic cup, which might explain why he wasn’t, for the first time in Charles’s memory, practically bleeding nervous energy. “Great party. Angel’s great. She was in the Science club last year, but had to drop it this year because she got too busy.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s why she didn’t want to be in the Science club any more,” Charles said glibly.

“Charles, why aren’t you in that club? I’ve seen the books on genetics in your room.” Raven was looking at him as though this were a perfectly acceptable thing for people to do, join the Science club. Charles glanced around wildly, hoping no one else had heard.

“Raven, please, not here —” He started to steer her away, but Hank McCoy latched on, this time to Charles.

“Are you interested in genetics? What’s your opinion on —” Before he could get another word out, Charles took Raven’s arm and pulled her through a group of people, his heart racing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stand it any longer!” Raven was nearly bent over laughing at him, which eased his mood. “C’mon, let’s get some drinks and walk around.”

They went into the kitchen for beer; Charles usually didn’t have to actually drink too much, and would instead let his mental walls down a bit to absorb everyone else’s drunkenness. He wasn’t planning on smoking, either, but Sean was sitting on the kitchen island (like a barbarian, Charles had a flash of Erik leering down at him) and offered them his joint.

Thus, he and Raven were both in incredibly high spirits when they literally ran into Angel. Raven immediately hugged her, sighing happily into Angel’s neck, which Angel didn’t seem disturbed by; she just laughed and hugged Charles afterward.

“This is a truly excellent party, Angel, thank you so much for inviting us!” Her tattooed arms, bare in some sort of backless leather minidress, looked very soft, and Charles traced one of them with his finger, thinking, I am so much higher than I thought. A burst of heat hit him, though he didn’t know from whose mind; he was getting clumsy.

“Charles, let’s go dance!” Raven said, giving him a shove and Angel a flirty smirk.

Some mindless pop song came on; Charles couldn’t name it, but there was still a wave of delight from the crowd as it came on, one girl shrieking in excitement, and that was enough for him. “You should make a move,” Charles said, spinning Raven around in his arms.

“Maybe later. Don’t want to seem too eager.” Raven’s mane of blonde hair hit him full in the face; Charles spat and giggled.

They danced for a while, and then got more drinks. At one point, they stumbled upon Emma and Janos, who were gazing into each other’s eyes: whether it was romance or blood lust, Charles and Raven did not stay long enough to find out.

“You know when all of a sudden...” Raven was leaning against the sink, or, more honestly, falling into the sink. “You’re just really, really, drunk?”

Charles was about to tell her to have some water when she lost her battle with gravity and banged her head on the faucet. Trying desperately not to laugh, Charles pulled her back up and cleaned off a bit of counter for her to sit on.

Angel appeared by his side almost instantly. “Is she okay?” she asked.

“Just a bump,” Raven slurred, stroking the top of Angel’s head.

“Keep her conscious, will you, I’ll get some ice!” Charles went to go do that, but took his time, as Raven was certainly a very affectionate drunk and he wanted to give her enough time to lay some groundwork.

He was a little bit worried about her head, though, so eventually he came back with ice cubes wrapped in a dishcloth.

“It’s so cool that you can fly,” Raven was saying, very seriously. Charles gave her the dishrag which she held up to her head obediently, and then winced. “This is really cold.”

“It’s ice, love. Hold it there or you’ll get a mark. Though I don’t suppose that would be a problem for you.”

Raven instantly shifted into Charles, who was her favorite person to pretend to be, mostly so she could mock his accent. “Spot on, my friend! Smashing. Splendid. Groo-oovy.”

“She’s concussed,” Charles explained to Angel. “Why don’t you take her for a dance?”

Angel took the ice away from Raven and then grabbed both her hands. “C’mon, I love this song.” She winked at Charles as they went off, Raven draped all across her back.

Charles sort of lost track of everyone. He dodged Hank McCoy twice more that night, watched Raven and Angel dance and flirt, had a serious conversation with Sean that he remembered nothing of, and interrupted Janos and Emma’s fight (it was obviously a fight by then, it was impossible to yell lovingly) so he could dance with her; when she disappeared, he just kept dancing, at one point with Azazel, which was interestingly not horrible.

Raven came and found him some time later. “Emma and Janos are fighting again, she wants to go.”

Charles nodded, taking a deep breath and trying to put his shields up again, which made him feel a little bit less drunk. “I’ll go get my jacket and I’ll meet you outside.” He started to get a headache, which made him want to shove everyone that got in his way as he wound his way around the crowd and into the living room, where everyone had thrown their coats.

He was elbow deep in the pile, not entirely sure what his jacket had looked like or if he had worn one at all, when Angel came up beside him. “You’re not leaving?” she asked, dismayed.

Charles sat down on the top of the couch, out of breath and grumpy. “Yes, it’s been lovely, but Emma is my ride home and she’s leaving.”

Angel put a hand on his leg. “Charles, I thought I was clear enough — I don’t want you to go home at all.”

Even if he wasn’t partially reading her mind, he would have gotten her meaning, now, finally, at the worst time. “I... um. What? I thought... Raven?”

“What about her?” And Angel was now, inexplicably, even closer, pressed all up along his front. Charles couldn’t exactly extricate himself without falling either onto her or back onto the coats.

“Charles?” Raven poked her head through the doorway, and her eyes widened so much that it would be comical if it wasn’t so horrifying. “Charles?” she repeated, more meekly.

Charles gave Angel a firm but gentle nudge, enough so he could get back on his feet, which were much less steady than he had hoped. He gripped the back of the couch and held his other hand out to Raven. “Please, a moment. I think there’s been some confusion. Angel, I’ve been trying to set you up with Raven.”

Angel glanced at Raven with a puzzled smile. “Then why have you been flirting with me all year?” she asked Charles, more genuinely confused than accusatory.

“Have I?” He leaned heavily against the back of the couch. He tapped into Angel’s mind and replayed all of their interactions from her perspective. His stomach churned. “Oh, I suppose I have.”

Raven didn’t say anything; her face crumpled and she left. Charles followed her, whispering apologies to Angel, abandoning his jacket (if it had ever existed). He saw Raven get into Emma’s car, and after a moment it sped away.

He supposed he deserved that. Whatever Raven thought was true. He wandered absently after the car, reluctant to go back into Angel’s house; he couldn’t stop thinking about how badly he had failed her. He had wanted so badly to be a good friend but he just... hadn’t been, obviously.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket; he answered it without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?” he said, feeling very far away.

“I’m calling to remind you that your curfew is in half an hour.” Sharon’s voice was brisk and alert, almost comforting in its familiarity.

Charles looked around. He had no idea where he was; he had wandered way too far. “I don’t suppose you’d let me be a bit late tonight?” he asked.

“Not a chance,” Sharon said, and disconnected the call.

Charles sighed and sat down on the curb, flicking through his phone and wondering if the chauffeur was still awake, when he felt something strangely cold on the back of his head.

“Give me your phone and your wallet, kid.” Charles had been so wrapped up in his own trouble that he hadn’t given the approaching mind — heavy though it was with desperation, exhaustion, bone-deep anger — a thought, until now, and now he was close enough that Charles could smell him, hear him thinking _looks soft rich, what’s he even doing here, won’t miss what I take._

Charles turned, just enough to see the man in the corner of his eye — and, oh, “That’s actually a gun!” he yelped, and, sharp and blind with terror, instinctively _pushed_ , with all his fear and the misery of the night, at the man’s mind.

His would-be assailant crumpled to the ground, the gun falling out of his hand and skidding a few feet away. Charles stared for ten long seconds, and then ran.

He stopped running after a few minutes when he realized the man probably wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, and took out his phone again. He scanned the area compulsively, waiting for another attack that he knew probably wouldn’t come. Reluctantly, he called the person he knew would be able to come get him the fastest.

“What?” Erik sounded oddly breathless, and cranky as always.

“Erik, I’ve just been held up at gun point and I have to be home in twenty-five minutes and I’m God-knows-where in Sun Valley and I was hoping... I would owe you forever if you would come pick me up.” He tried to sound as calm as possible; he didn’t need Erik to know how upset he was. At least the near-death experience had sobered him up. “Please, Erik.”

“Yeah, I’ll — text me the street names where you are. I’ll be there soon.”

Charles pulled the street names from minds in the houses around him, and then texted Erik. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Erik pulled up in his pick-up truck less than ten minutes later. Charles was never sure if the truck was supposed to be that disgusting color or if had completely rusted over; neither would surprise him. He kept this thought to himself, though, because he didn’t want to be left behind a second time tonight.

All he said was “Thank you,” as he slid into the passenger seat. Erik stared at him oddly; Charles assumed that it was his outfit. His party clothes were much more binding than his regular clothes.

“Don’t you have a jacket?” Erik asked, finally turning back to the road and driving away.

“I forgot it.” Charles drew his legs up to his chest and hugged his knees. He didn’t even have the energy to banter with Erik, and that was saying something.

Apparently, Erik wasn’t satisfied with the silence. “Did you really get held up at gunpoint?” He sounded very angry; Charles assumed it was because of how stupid he thought Charles was.

“Yes. I knocked him out, though. Purely by accident, of course.” He smiled grimly out the window. “I would have appealed to his better nature, but instinct took over.”

Erik grunted. “Good. He deserved it.”

For once trying to avoid a philosophical argument, Charles didn’t call him a psychopath, and instead said, “You got here quickly.”

“I wasn’t too far away.” Charles thought he wasn’t going to explain further, until he finally added, with great trepidation, “I was on a date.”

Charles snorted. “I hope you didn’t take her anywhere around here.”

“Actually.” Erik said, but then apparently gave up on the conversation.

Charles sighed. “What is it?” He hated being curious, but he wasn’t about to barge his way into Erik’s mind.

“ _He_ lives in Glendale.” Erik’s ears were red, but he mostly sounded angry, still.

Charles blinked, but couldn’t muster up much shock. It had been an entirely bizarre and eventful night, of course Erik would choose to come out to him as well. “Oh. Well, you know I don’t care about that, although I feel I should make some disparaging remark about anyone who would date you, but I’ll skip it tonight because you’ve been very nice.” He smiled a bit, which grew when Erik glanced over and smiled back at him.

“Thanks for picking me up, really. And my apologies to your date.” Feeling suddenly nervous, he turned on the radio and started flipping through the channels to have something to do with his hands.

“It’s alright, I didn’t really like him.” Erik’s ears were still red.

They ended up getting back to the house about twenty minutes after Charles’s curfew, despite Erik’s creative and death-defying driving, but Sharon ended up being too distracted by her case to really notice.

Charles said a polite good night to Erik and went straight to bed, more than ready for the day, and all its strange emotions, to be over.

-

The next morning was a nightmare. Charles had a protein shake for breakfast to prepare himself for what would doubtless be a horrible conversation with Raven, but by noon he had called her at least ten times and she hadn’t answered.

He felt completely useless. He was flipping through the newest Science magazine to try to distract himself when Sharon came in. He considered ducking under the coffee table, because he could feel the storm brewing halfway across the house.

“Charles, I’ve gotten an anonymous complaint from one of the staff that you keep driving over the lawn,” she said, eyebrows raised.

“Was it the gardener? I haven’t done that much damage, honestly. Nothing beyond his pay grade.” Charles rubbed his temples; he still had a headache from the night before.

“It doesn’t bode well for your driving abilities if you can’t even get into the driveway without destroying the hedges.” Sharon stared at him, considering, but he said nothing. He didn’t even have the energy to defend himself. “From now on, you can’t take the Mercedes out unless you’re with a licensed driver. Over 18, Emma doesn’t count.”

“I can only take this as a sign that you no longer have any faith in me or my abilities.” Charles texted Raven again, this time a random string of letters and numbers. “I haven’t crashed the car or gotten a ticket or anything.”

“I suspect the reason you haven’t gotten a ticket is due to telepathic rather than driving skill.” Charles flushed at the accusation, but she just smirked and left before he could contest it. A parking ticket hardly counted, anyway.

-

When Raven still hadn’t answered any of his calls by one, Charles braced himself and went and knocked on Erik’s door. He was the only licensed driver he knew who probably had nothing to do all day.

“Erik? It’s important!” Charles shouted. He couldn’t hear anything move, but he kept knocking. “Are you asleep?”

The door swung open with a jerk. Erik wasn’t on the other side; he was lying on his bed across the room, reading a book, probably Proust or Nietzsche or someone else equally dreary. As far as Charles could tell, Erik only used his powers for mild inconveniences.

Taking the door opening as an invitation, Charles went and stood over Erik, who rolled over onto his back. He was shirtless, Charles noted, and at some point he had developed... muscles.

“Good morning. Afternoon, really, but you haven’t come out of your room yet, or gotten dressed.” Charles said, oddly flustered. It was just Erik, Erik and his chest and abs. “Anyway, will you come on a drive with me? I need to go beg for forgiveness.”

Erik scratched his chest — Charles forced his eyes to stay on Erik’s face, no need to flatter him — and yawned. “There’s no chance you’ll go away if I say no, is there?”

“Not at all. Put on a shirt and meet me downstairs!” Charles turned on his heel and fled.

-

“So what are you begging forgiveness for?” Erik asked. “Charles, pick a goddamn lane.”

Charles glanced in his rear view mirror and swerved into the right lane, narrowly avoiding a parked car. He had a sneaking suspicion that Erik was controlling the car more than he was, but there was no way to prove it.

“I was trying to set Raven up with Angel, but it turns out I was flirting with Angel and Raven’s mad at me. I suppose she has a right to. I just don’t know how I let things get so wrong. I’m usually so good at that sort of thing.” He sighed, and took a right turn; in his mirror he saw a cyclist gently floated out of the way. “Erik! How am I supposed to learn if you’re doing everything?”

“Would you prefer if I let you kill him?” Erik asked. “And as interesting as your romantic melodrama is —”

“I’m not actually interested in Angel, it was all a mix-up!” Charles protested.

Erik barreled on, grinning, “I do have other things to do with my time than protecting the world from your driving.”

“Oh, like what?” Charles asked. He actually had no idea what Erik did with his free time — study and go on dates with boys, apparently.

“I have a meeting. Mutant Defense League. I’m the vice president.” He jerked the car to a stop as they pulled up to a red light.

“I was about to brake,” Charles grumbled. “And what does your club do? Most mutants can take care of themselves well enough.”

“Everyone seems to think we’re okay now, that we’ve gotten the Mutant and Special Abilities Privacy Act and the Civil Rights one, but we have a long way to go. In case you haven’t noticed, Charles, you’re in a bubble.”

Charles made a face. “Oh, yes, I’m privileged and rich and I’ll never understand the real world. I know. Look, we’re here. Can you parallel park?”

Erik laughed, but guided the car carefully into the available spot by Raven’s building.

“That’s beautiful. I’m just going to run up and do the whole apology thing. Can you stay here and fend off the car thieves?” Charles handed Erik the keys and jumped out of the car before he could protest.

He tricked the doorman into letting him in, and got Raven’s apartment number at the same time. Mild inconveniences, he thought, darting into the elevator after an older woman carrying grocery bags.

He knocked politely on Raven’s door and waited. He heard someone approach, so he smiled at the peephole, but then he clearly heard Raven curse and start to walk away again. He pounded on the door. “Raven, Raven, please, I’m here to beg for forgiveness, and I won’t go away until I’ve done. Please, Raven, you don’t have to forgive me but at least let me apologize, it’s only polite!”

The door cracked open. Raven peeked her blonde head out. “You really are the worst, Charles,” she said, but didn’t sound too angry about it.

Charles dropped to his knees. He might as well do it right when he had the chance. “Raven, I am so very sorry. I am a terrible friend, and my only excuse is that I am deeply stupid. So I’m sorry.”

Raven opened the door wider. “Okay, I forgive you. You can get up off the ground now.”

“Brilliant.” She even let him hug her, although she still acted like she was doing him a favor. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing the rest of the day but I was thinking I could buy you something offensively expensive to make up for everything.”

Raven smiled at him, a little sad. “I actually have plans. Maybe tomorrow?”

Charles nodded, and started away. She caught his wrist, and held him for a second. “Really, it’s okay,” she said. “And by the way, I just told Emma that you didn’t want to leave yet. She didn’t know what happened.”

“Emma is a mind-reader, love, she knew.” It pained him to consider, but it was true.

He went back down to the car. Erik had reclined his seat all the way back, and was pretending to be asleep even though Charles had only be gone for ten minutes at the most. “Alright, my apologies, we can go.”

Erik brought his seat back up and took off his silly reflective sunglasses. “How’d it go? Not well?”

“Why do you say that? She forgave me.” Charles remembered to check his side mirror before he pulled out into the street. Erik was watching him, he could feel it, but instead of saying anything, he just clapped Charles on the shoulder.

“Bad people never apologize,” he said, which Charles thought was a weird way to put it, but he felt better nonetheless.

-

His relationship with Raven mostly went back to normal, though he now felt terribly awkward whenever he saw Angel, which was rather often. He thought about asking Raven if there was anyone else she liked, but he supposed he had done quite enough in that area.

Erik had actually started helping Sharon with her case, so he was around the house even more; when Charles asked him why, he just grunted and said, “Networking,” which didn’t make much sense for an engineering major, but Charles couldn’t get anything else out of him.

Luckily, one of Charles’s schemes had worked out well enough. He caught Mr. Muñoz and Mr. Summers driving in together on several occasions, and once accidentally caught them kissing in Mr. Summers’s car. It was a bit traumatic, but kept Charles from completely despairing.

As a bonus, Mr. Summers agreed to raise Charles’s grade from a B to an A-, which he claimed was because Charles had actually started researching his arguments, but Charles knew the truth.

He interrupted his mother that day after school to give her his new progress report. He sort of desperately wanted Erik to see, but Erik refused to even look up from whatever deposition he was examining, calmly munching on an apple as if Charles weren’t there. “I know a 3.91 is hardly a 4.0, but I do have a social life to attend to as well, after all.”

Erik didn’t rise to the bait; Charles really was losing his touch. Sharon patted his cheek and sent him away.

-

Emma came to pick him a week later. “I have interesting news,” she said, as he sat down.

“Hm,” he said, trying and failing to make it an inquisitive ‘hm.’

 _What’s the matter? You’ve been glum for ages._ Emma knew he didn’t like to talk about feelings; he appreciated her discretion with almost a physical pang.

Instead of answering, he just pushed his feeling of affection to her. “Oh, stop. Will you listen to my gossip?” He pushed more affection at her; she sent him the feeling of hair being pulled. “There’s another new student starting today. A human.”

“Oh, really?” Charles thought the humans who chose to come to their school were fascinating. It was a good school for the academics, but there were other good schools in Los Angeles that didn’t have a primarily mutant population. Unfortunately, most of the humans already at their high school, while being more or less tolerant of mutants, avoided him and Emma like the plague. Telepathy was worse than face-melting, to some.

“I knew you’d like that. I might have even convinced the secretary to put her in some of your classes when she was arranging her schedule yesterday.” Emma smiled sidelong at him. _I’ve been worried about you._

 _I’m fine._ “But thank you. I look forward to meeting her.” Charles needed — something. Something to put his energy in. He and Raven had never ended up starting a club, and though he had actually started doing the majority of his schoolwork, he felt a little at end.

The first thing he saw when he walked into Debate that morning was the pretty human girl sitting in his regular seat. He dropped into the one beside her, grinning. “Charles Xavier, telepath. Are you new?” he asked, offering his hand.

She shook it briskly. “Moira MacTaggert, non-mutant. I just moved here from Chicago.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Charles said. He brushed her mind, very lightly, and found it very orderly and complex. He warmed to her immediately. “Would you have lunch with me today?”

Moira arched one of her eyebrows. “Forward. But I promised some lanky kid with glasses I’d go to the Science club meeting during lunch. Maybe some other time.”

Was he being forward? He felt strangely self-conscious when he was talking to her; maybe it was the appraising way she looked at him, or because he was fresh off his mix-up with Angel. Or maybe he liked her. She was very pretty, he thought, smiling and leaning back in his seat and Mr. Summers walked in and began class.

Maybe what was missing from his life was a girlfriend. He could already tell that Moira was competent and smart, and she was interesting, not just because she was human. She hadn’t reacted when he said he was a telepath. Perhaps it didn’t bother her.

He snuck glances at her throughout the class period, which he was fairly certain she noticed. By the time the bell rang, Charles had convinced himself that he and Moira should date, if not marry.

As he walked out of the room, he caught a glimpse of the new picture he had noticed Mr. Summers put on his desk a few days ago. It was of him and Mr. Muñoz at the beach. Charles was good at matchmaking; he had one little mishap, but this was different.

He caught up to Moira in the hallway. “I’d like to offer my services. If you need any help settling in at all. To school, or to Los Angeles, or anything.” He blushed when she smirked at him, like she was the telepath and knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll see you later, Charles.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

“Soon, I hope!” he shouted after her.

-

“How do I get Moira to date me?” Charles asked as he sat down to lunch with Raven and Emma that day. “I’m looking for insights to the female mind.”

 _Are you even a telepath?_ Emma asked him.

 _I want to do this the old-fashioned way_ , he shot back.

“Step one, ask her out.” Since their fight, Raven had become more snappy and sarcastic. Charles hoped it was a result of her becoming more comfortable with them, and not her holding a grudge, though he supposed it could easily be both. “There is no step two.”

“But I want to _woo_ her.” Raven and Emma exchanged a look and Raven pretended to throw up under the table. “Flowers? Chocolate? What do you think?”

“Stop watching romantic comedies,” Emma advised. “Spend time with her and then ask her out. There’s no need to make it overly complicated.”

Raven said, “But it’s _Charles_ ,” at the same time that Charles said, “But it’s _me_.” Raven gave him a fond smile.

“You’re both useless,” he said, not unkindly. “I’ll just have to use my irresistible Xavier charm on her. Not my telepathy,” he added, before Emma could comment. “Though many have said my charm is super-human.”

“Alright, now I’m really going to puke,” Raven said, throwing a French fry at Charles’s face, which he neatly dodged.

-

Moira was in Charles’s chemistry class at the end of the day as well. Unfortunately, the class had assigned seating, so he was resigned to staring at her across the room while the rest of the students busied themselves doing amateur experiments that Charles had done when he was nine.

When there were five minutes left in class and he had cleaned up his work station, he weaseled his way over to her lab bench, unceremoniously elbowing Sean away and nearly breaking a few beakers in the process. “So you like science,” he said. “I also like science.”

“Oh really,” she said, recording her data in her notebook. Charles thought that Moira wore goggles more fetchingly than anyone he had ever seen.

“Genetics, specifically.” She didn’t believe him; she thought he was just chatting her up. It was frustrating, because Charles was sure he would never get another opportunity to use his interest in genetics to entice.

“Anything else?” she asked, finally looking up at him.

“What?” He was sure he had never sounded so stupid in his entire life as he had in this conversation.

“I mean, are you interested in anything else?” He stared at her blankly for a few seconds, trying to remember what he did with his life. Her eyes were the perfect brown — a soft, sweet brown. She is very pretty, he told himself.

“Well, fitness and nutrition. Luxury cars. Scientific history, especially of psychology and neuroscience.” He could sense her boredom. He was boring her! He, Charles Xavier, was being boring. In a panic, he started saying words more or less randomly: “Knitting! Bird-watching! Chess!”

Her eyes lit up at the last one. “You play chess? I love it.” Then, over his shoulder, “Here, Sean, do you want to copy these?”

“Yes, my father taught me when I was young,” he replied, which was true: one of Charles’s only memories of his father was being taught the rules of chess. Then again, Charles’s father had died when he was eight and Charles hadn’t played since. He couldn’t believe chess of all things was what had got Moira interested, but he’d take what he could get.

Thankfully, the bell rang before the chess conversation could go on any further. “Oh, no, well, must run. But we should play a game some time. Of chess, I mean. If you’d like.” He smiled at her hopefully.

After a moment, she nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Yeah, that would be fun. I’ll see you later, Charles.” She patted him on the arm and walked away, saying something to Sean that made him laugh.

As soon as she was out of sight, Charles pulled out his phone, and for the first time since he had gotten the number, he texted Erik. ‘do you know anything about chess? it’s an emergency.’

‘yes. and i doubt it is.’

‘will teach me tonight? serious 911 or i wouldn’t ask’

‘ok. look up the word emergency in a dictionary before then.’

Of course Erik would be as mean as possible about it. Charles was slightly shocked that he even agreed, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

-

“The bishops move diagonally,” Erik said. His tone didn’t suggest that he was mocking Charles, but how could he possibly think Charles didn’t know the basic movements of all the pieces? He was going on in such excruciating detail, Charles almost thought he was dragging this out on purpose, which was odd, because he hadn’t shown up until ten o’clock; Charles had already changed into his pajamas and had almost given up on him entirely.

“Erik, please, I know all this already.” He had slouched so far in his chair that he was practically horizontal, his flimsy t-shirt rucked up past his belly button.

“You asked for my help, so you’re getting it,” Erik said. He had been acting weird all night, had barely touched the giant chocolate bar he brought with him. “And are you going to tell me where this sudden interest in chess came from?”

Charles sat up properly in his chair, took a sip of his tea. “Well, actually.” He should be honest with Erik; Erik had been honest with him, and their relationship recently had been almost friendly. “I’m trying to impress a girl. Lord knows why she likes chess, but here we are.”

Erik’s expression didn’t change, but his voice sounded a little strained: “I hope it works out for you. The rooks move vertically and horizontally, and that’s all of them.” His knuckles tightened briefly on the arms of his chair. “You’re white, so you move first.”

They went on with the game in silence, other than Erik berating him for the various moves he made. Charles wasn’t sure why he was so cross all of a sudden. Charles had certainly reacted better when Erik told him about his love life.

Erik obviously won the first round, and the second, and three more after that, though the games were becoming slightly longer each time, and Erik had fewer comments.

“You’re a fast learner,” Erik said quietly, not meeting Charles’s eyes.

“It must come as a shock to you,” Charles said. He knew Erik was going to get his queen soon, but he wasn’t sure how to escape it.

“Not really.” Erik’s response came almost a full minute later. Charles had avoided his queen getting trapped, but now Erik was about to check him.

“Really?” Charles chuckled, a little bitter. “It sometimes seems that you think I’m... I don’t know. Dim.” He kept smiling, but there was no mirth behind it.

Erik tapped the back of his hand lightly, so Charles would look at him; he felt hot and on edge the way he only did around Erik, but he found that he didn’t actually want to fight with him any more.

“I don’t think that. I think you have... a lot of potential, if only you’d bother to do something with it.” Erik held his gaze for a moment longer, and then looked down at the board. Charles picked up his tea mug, which he realized belatedly was already empty. His palms were damp.

Erik cleared his throat. “Checkmate.”

Charles glanced down and sighed. “You win again. It’s getting late, do you mind if we stop?”

“I have class early tomorrow.” Erik began to deftly pack up the board and the pieces. “If you want to play again —”

“Please. Tomorrow?” If he was going to play Moira any time soon, he wanted to be able to hold his own.

Erik just nodded, and mumbled a good night as he left Charles’s room.

-

“Are you doing anything tonight?” Charles asked Moira, two days later, at the beginning of Debate on Friday. So far she had refused all his invitations, for anything, but Charles wasn’t deterred. “There’s a party — my ex-step-brother’s friends are in a band, it should be fun.” Erik had casually invited him over a game of chess the day before, though probably only because it looked like Charles was going to win for once and he was trying to shock him into distraction.

Moira considered, her mouth twisting. “That actually sounds fun. I don’t know that many people around here yet.”

Charles grinned victoriously. “Lovely! Come pick me up around nine? I’ll text you my address.”

Moira nodded, looking at him in that familiar, almost exasperated way. “Sure thing.”

Charles couldn’t wait to go gloat to Emma and Raven about the Xavier charm working once again.

-

Charles dimly thought he that had heard the doorbell, but it was only 8:55 and he didn’t know anyone who made it a habit to be early, so he kept on trying to fix his hair until 9:02, and then finally went downstairs to find Moira in the crowd of lawyers in the dining room, being interrogated by his mother, with Erik listening on attentively.

He was immediately filled with dread; he rushed to her side, expecting the worst, but Moira actually appeared to be holding her own.

“Do you drink?” Sharon asked as Charles walked up. No one took any notice of him except for Erik, who appeared to be enjoying himself greatly.

“Not when I’m driving,” Moira said promptly, swinging her car keys around on her finger. “Do you?” She looked away from Sharon down to the thermos, and then back up. Charles was half embarrassed, half impressed by her boldness.

“None of your business,” Sharon said quickly, but she didn’t sound half as angry as Charles would have expected. “Where are you two going?”

“A party. Aren’t you going, Erik?” Charles put his arm casually around Moira’s shoulders, which she allowed.

Erik’s laughter disappeared. “Oh. Maybe later.”

“Well, perhaps we’ll run into each other again before the night is through,” Charles said, inclining his head to him. “Now, if you’ll excuse us. Moira, you ready?”

She nodded. “It was nice to meet you, Sharon. Erik.” She led Charles out of the room with a stiff turn of her heel. Charles would have to remember to ask Erik what had happened between Moira and his mother before he had gotten there, and how exactly they had gotten on a first name basis.

-

They listened to the Rolling Stones and chatted idly on the car ride over; the conversation didn’t flow quite as easily as Charles imagined it might, but they were still getting to know each other. They probably had years of conversational practice ahead of them.

Moira drove a Ford Focus, while Charles couldn’t resist commenting on, and quickly got into a debate, edging on an argument, about the merits (or lack thereof, in Charles’s opinion) of American-made cars, which Charles ended before he got too upset. No need to spoil the evening, even if his date was being absurd.

The concert had started by the time they got there, and it was too loud to keep talking, which was probably for the best. Moira was a good dancer, at least, and Charles began to feel much better about his prospects for the evening.

Raven showed up soon after they got there; he waved to her with both arms and she wove her way through the crowd to get to them. He kissed her on the cheek and introduced her to Moira.

“I’m going to go get something to drink.” Raven practically had to shout at them. “Do you two want anything?” Moira shook her head but Charles gave her a twenty for beer.

“She’s great,” he told Moira, when Raven had disappeared again. He thought that might be a deal breaker, if Moira didn’t like her, but Moira just smiled and nodded, and kept dancing.

He caught a glimpse through the crowd of Raven, looking about thirty, at the bar — and then Erik, out of nowhere, came up beside her. He whispered something in her ear, and Raven laughed, switching back to her seventeen year old form.

Charles tried not to watch, but he couldn’t stop himself. Raven and Erik drinking together, laughing, leaning into each other’s space (they had to, to be heard over the crowd, Charles told himself).

“Oh, look,” Moira said beside him. She waved at someone across the crowd. Charles glanced over and saw Sean Cassidy, of all people. “I’m going to go say hi,” Moira said, and patted Charles on the shoulder as she left him in the crowd.

He sighed. Only one thing to do. He went over to the bar where Raven and Erik were chatting, forced a smile onto his face. “Did you get me a beer?” he asked Raven.

“Oh, right, sorry, I was about to bring it over to you.” She handed him a bottle, which he took a long swig from, as soon as it was in his hand.

“Your friends are good,” he said, though he found he could hardly meet Erik’s eyes.

“Where’s your date?” Erik asked, close enough that Charles could feel his breath. He moved away slightly.

“Went to say hello to a friend. I think I’ll go find her.” Charles squeezed Raven’s arm as a goodbye and disappeared back into the crowd.

Why did he feel so out of sorts? This was a party. He was meant to be having fun. He chugged his beer and searched the crowd for Moira, but he couldn’t see her anywhere.

What he did see, however, was Raven and Erik dancing, very close together. Erik’s hands on Raven’s waist, Raven’s arms wrapped around his neck, Raven laughing with her head thrown back.

But he’s gay, Charles thought dully. But that’s not exactly what he had said. All Charles knew was that he had gone on one date with a boy he hadn’t liked much. There were thousands of options, all of them running through Charles’s head right now.

At that moment, Moira reappeared with a sweet smile on her face. “Sorry about that,” she said.

“Not to worry!” He could have kissed her then, but something stopped him.

About an hour later, though, Moira had disappeared and he was at the bar with Erik and Raven again, ready to smash his beer bottle across his own head. At least Raven was in a bad mood as well; they had seen Angel and Azazel dancing.

Charles waved the bartender over; his beer was nearly empty.

“Haven’t you had enough?” Erik said, probably trying to be nice, but his tone hit a nerve and Charles rounded on him with a glare.

“Please, don’t pretend to care about me, or what I do. Or is it just that you want me to go away?” He looked meaningfully at Raven, who just furrowed her brow.

Moira chose that moment to come over, placing one hand between Charles’s shoulder blades. He found he wasn’t as happy at her return as he thought he would be. “Charles, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. My mom just called me...” She drifted off and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, I’ll take him home,” Erik said. Charles barely kept himself from kicking him in the shin.

One last chance, then. He wrapped his arms around Moira’s waist and smiled down at her. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Can we do it again?” The music must have gotten louder, because his watch was vibrating on his wrist, and he felt her ring do the same, where her hand was resting on his shoulder.

Moira smiled and hugged him. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can finally play that game of chess.”

“Good night.” He should kiss her now, but the moment was gone as soon as he thought it; she detached herself from his arms and went off. He thought he saw her talking to Sean again, but then the crowd moved and blocked his view, and then she was gone.

“We should probably get going soon,” Erik said. He seemed positively cheery. “This band is shit, anyway.”

“They’re your friends!” Charles said, shaking his head. “You’re the worst.”

Erik just shrugged and tugged on back of Charles’s jacket. “C’mon. Before you get any more belligerently drunk.”

“I’m not belligerent,” Charles mumbled, keeping the _asshole_ to himself. Raven ducked under his arm and pulled him out, following the path Erik made out of the club.

-

Once they dropped Raven off, Charles had calmed down and sobered up to the point that he could talk easily with Erik again. “If Moira wants to play hard to get, I’ll do it. As long as there’s getting at the end of it.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “I’m genuinely not trying to be mean, but she didn’t seem that into you. You’re a telepath, you didn’t pick up on that?”

“Playing hard to get,” Charles repeated, humming along to the song playing on the radio. “I bet Sharon and the lawyers are still up. She’s a task master like no other.”

Erik grunted in agreement.

“We should — why don’t we order some take-out for them? I’m sure they haven’t eaten since dinner, and we both know how cranky Sharon gets when she drinks on an empty stomach.”

Erik turned to look at him; if Charles didn’t know any better, he would have said he looked fond. “That’s a good idea.”

“I’m glad you’re finally coming to appreciate me, my friend.” He blushed when he realized what he said, but he was still drunk enough to get away with it. Erik didn’t comment, anyway, just made another small noise of agreement.

-

The lawyers were so happy with the food, which was pretty low-grade fare as far as Charles was concerned, that Charles began to suspect that his mother was actually whipping them. Whatever got the job done, he thought, forcing his mother to take the plastic bottle of orange juice from his hands. “Vitamins,” he said. “ _Vitamins._ ”

Sharon gave him a near-genuine smile, and sent him away, though not before he saw her take a long sip from the orange juice.

Too wired to sleep, Charles changed out of his jeans and into his pajama pants, and sat down in front of the television; Erik joined him a few minutes later with a truly enormous bowl of popcorn. “What is this?” he asked, horrified.

“The Biggest Loser,” Charles told him. He glanced at the popcorn, and mentally calculated how many calories he had consumed that day, before taking a huge handful and stuffing it in his mouth. “It’s a competitive weight loss reality show,” he explained, spraying popcorn everywhere.

“This is horrifying,” Erik said, but watched, mesmerized, all the same. “I meant to ask, have you broken your plateau yet? Seven and a half minutes?”

Charles didn’t think Erik ever actually listened when he talked, but apparently he did. “Yes, actually, I got down to 7:15 this morning.” He smiled uncontrollably to himself.

“That’s good.” Erik kept staring at the screen, even though it was Taco Bell commercial now.

The phone rang shrilly. Charles turned away from Erik and picked up the phone behind him. “Xavier residence,” he said, wondering who was calling this late; his mother refused to get rid of the antique phones she had held onto from her childhood, so they had no caller ID.

“Hello, is this Charles?” Charles had never heard the man’s voice before; it was perfectly cheery and smooth, but it unsettled him all the same. “It’s Sebastian Shaw, Erik Lehnsherr’s stepfather.”

That explained it. “Oh, hello, Mr. Shaw!” he said, grabbing Erik’s shoulder. He needn’t have bothered, Erik had nearly jumped out of his seat the moment Charles said Shaw’s name, his eyes wide; he was shaking his head rapidly, his face cycling through fear-horror-anger and back again. “How can I help you?”

“I was just wondering if my stepson was at your house. I’ve been calling him, but he hasn’t been answering his cell phone.” Maybe it was just Erik’s terrifying reaction to the name, but Shaw’s voice was beginning to make Charles feel queasy. “I have something I really need to talk to him about.”

Charles squeezed Erik’s shoulder, trying to send him calm feelings, as he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Shaw, but I haven’t seen Erik in ages. I can leave a message, if you like, but I really have no idea when he might turn up here, if ever.”

Erik seemed to have relaxed slightly, closing his eyes and inclining his head so his cheek brushed the top of Charles’s hand. Charles exhaled sharply out of his nose, and barely heard what Shaw said next: “If you happen to see him, just tell him I need to talk to him.”

“Of course I will. Good night, Mr. Shaw.”

“Good night, Charles. I hope we’ll meet one of these days.”

Charles put down the phone and took a deep breath. “God. He must be the Antichrist, if the look on your face is anything to go by.”

Erik kept his eyes closed for a moment longer, and then pulled away. Charles rubbed his hand absently against his knee. “He was nice at first. I always thought he was smarmy, but my mother...” He winced, and Charles didn’t think he would go on, until he did. “My mother liked him. She liked everyone, always thought they had good intentions. So I tried to like him. After they were married, though.”

Erik shook his head, and turned away as the show came back on, which they watched in companionable silence for a while. At the next commercial break, Erik said, “Don’t ever tell him where I am. Or meet with him. Please.”

“If you like, I can have a hit put out on him,” Charles said innocently. “I’m not sure _exactly_ how much a paid assassin costs, but if I told Sharon it was a gift for you, she’d give me the money.”

“That’s because Sharon loves me the most of anyone in her life,” Erik said, and caught in his mouth the popcorn Charles threw at him.

-

Charles was idly trying to select what outfit he’d wear to his driver’s test when his cellphone rang. It was Moira. He’d never imagined that she’d actually call: he almost forgot to pick up the phone in shock.

“Hello?” he said tentatively.

“Hi!” Moira said, brighter than he’d ever heard her. Perhaps the playing hard-to-get portion of their relationship was over. “Want to watch a movie or something tonight?”

“Yes, absolutely, I’d love that. Would you like to come to my place?” He abandoned the driver’s test outfit and immediately wracked his brain for what to wear that evening — not too fancy, not too comfortable, alluring but not too sexy... He’d have to bring Emma in.

“Great. I have dinner plans, but I’ll come by after. I’ll text you when I’m on my way.” She hung up unceremoniously after that. Not exactly romantic, but she had initiated plans with him for the first time, and sounded happy about it.

Charles texted Emma immediately: ‘911 date w moira tonight come over now’.

She was at his house ten minutes later. “She’s not coming until tonight? You have ten hours, Xavier.” But she still walked with him through his wardrobe, and was a soothing presence, especially since he was practically having a panic attack.

“It’s just, I’ve never... Or hardly ever, actually been interested in anyone. You know that.” He sprawled backwards on his bed, trying to take deep breaths. “What if this is my only chance at love? What if I never meet anyone who’s interesting again? And I mess this up tonight?”

“I’m putting on nature sounds,” Emma said, sitting at his computer. A moment later, the sound of the ocean filled his room. “You need to relax. If she likes you, and you act like yourself, then everything should be fine.”

“Who am I, though?” Charles said, at which point Emma offered him a Xanax.

-

He’d mostly calmed down by the time Raven called to tell him she was sure he’d do great, which buffeted his sagging self-confidence. “I will, won’t I?” he said, pacing in circles in the middle of his room. Emma had given up on him and was reading a magazine on his window seat. “I’m attractive and smart and well-liked, after all. You like me, don’t you, Raven?”

“I’m your biggest fan,” she said. She might be making fun of him. That was okay. Charles could take mockery. He had nearly five years of experience putting up with Erik.

“Thank you. You’re great, too, by the way. I have to go, I have to get changed.” It was almost dinner time. Emma left once he got off the phone, giving him an icy blast of calm down as a parting gift.

Sharon was out for dinner, and Erik was nowhere to be found, so Charles just ate some cucumber slices and a oatmeal raisin cookie for dinner, not wanting to be bloated when Moira got there.

She texted him at 8:30 that she was on her way. He had already cleaned his room and the path from the front door to his room, and the closest bathroom, since the maid was off on Saturdays and cleaning was soothing to his mind, any way.

Thankfully, the doorbell rang before he could change his outfit more than twice. He went to the front door, projecting ease as best he could, and finally swung it open. Moira was there, in a t-shirt and jeans, holding a box. She grinned at him.

“I brought Planet Earth. It’s a nature documentary.” That was the box in her hands, which she held up for his inspection. “Obviously we can’t watch the whole thing, it’s hours long.”

He smirked at her in what he hoped was a devilish, sexy way. “No, not unless you wanted to make a weekend of it.”

She looked puzzled by that, and pushed past him to come inside. He took the box from her so she could take off her coat, and then they traded those, with more than a little scrambling. Charles chuckled nervously. “We’ll go up to my room?” he said, walking up the main stairs.

Moira shrugged. Now that she was here, something seemed off — decidedly friendly, but she wasn’t flirting or anything, and her mind was very calm, almost distant, when he touched it. He was at a loss.

“Here it is,” he said, pushing his bedroom door open. “The DVD player is right there... on top of the television... where it usually is.”

Moira nodded and went over to his television. “This is a really nice place,” she said, smirking at him.

“Yes, I’m terribly lucky. Do you... Would you like to play a game of chess before we start?” That would be nice. He had actually come to like the game over the past week, the strategy, which he could now only think about in Erik’s low, rumbling voice.

“Yeah, that would be fun.” She dropped the DVDs on top of the television. “Where’s your board?”

He looked around, and then realized that Erik must have taken it. “Oh, it must be in Erik’s room. I’ll just go grab it. Don’t move a muscle.” He smiled and backed out of the room, and raced down the hallway, so he was slightly out of breath when he got to Erik’s door.

He knocked out of habit, though he was sure enough that Erik wasn’t there that he started to open the door without waiting. “Erik...?” he said, stepping in and flicking on the light.

Erik was there. His jacket was on, and so were his shoes; he had clearly just come in. “Charles,” he said. He was standing in the middle of the room, looking at Charles — not angry, but something close. Predatory, almost. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t think you were here. I’ve just come to borrow the chess board.” He smiled blithely, trying to reduce the inexplicable tension in the room. “Moira’s here.”

“Yes, I saw her come in.” Erik said. He went over to his desk and took the box with the board and chess pieces off of it, held it out to Charles without moving any closer. “Here.”

Charles walked over very slowly. It was ridiculous, he thought. Erik wasn’t about to lunge at him, though it almost felt that way. However, once he had gotten close enough, he reached for the board and Erik pulled it away, holding it above his head.

Charles scoffed. “Are we thirteen again, Erik? If you don’t want to lend me the board, just say so. You’re acting very strange. And _stop_ that, this is my favorite watch.” It had gotten uncomfortably tight and hot around his wrist.

He started to step back, but Erik caught him by the arm and pressed the box to his chest. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was just a joke. I didn’t mean to...” He gestured lazily with his wrist and Charles’s watch went back to normal.

Charles nodded, accepting the box and walking away. “Well, I’ll see you later, I suppose.”

“I’m not staying,” Erik snapped, glaring out the window. “I’m on my way out. I came to pick something up, but I’m going now.”

“Alright. Have a nice night, then.” Charles waited another moment, to see if Erik would say anything else, but he didn’t, so Charles went back down the all.

Moira was examining his book shelf. “You actually do like genetics?” she said, sounding pleased.

“I do,” he said. “I don’t know why someone would lie about something so unrepentantly dorky.” He meant it as a joke, but she just rolled her eyes. “I got the board,” he said, shaking it a little so the pieces rattled around inside.

“Maybe we should just watch the show, I don’t want to be out too late.” She turned the television on; the DVD menu immediately started.

“Fine,” Charles said, leaving the chess box on the little table that he and Erik usually played at. “I’m looking forward to it.”

They watched the DVD in silence. Charles made a few jokes, and at one point they actually had a conversation, or the kind of conversation that happens while a movie is playing. When the episode ended, Moira stood up and stretched, and got the disc out of the DVD player.

“I’m beat,” she said pointedly.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay later?” Charles said. He couldn’t muster up the energy to protest much further.

“No, that’s okay.” She was convinced, either way. Her mind was fairly unique, moved in the same decisive, self-confident way that Moira did.

When he walked her to the door, she gave him a quick hug, too quick for him to consider making a move. “I had fun. We should do this again sometime.”

“Certainly,” he said, and waved at her as she drove away.

-

“I don’t know what it was, truly.” Charles slumped down in the backseat of Emma’s car. Raven patted his shoulder consolingly. “I don’t think she was interested in me. And I don’t think I minded.”

“Sometimes you can’t explain these things,” Emma said. “Maybe it just wasn’t right.”

“What are we talking about?” Janos asked idly. Emma had insisted on bringing him to Charles’s pity brunch, probably to keep Charles from whining for the entire time. Janos keeps you marginally dignified, she had said.

“I had a date last night with Moira, and it didn’t go well.” Deep down Charles knew he wasn’t that upset. A failed date was a failed date, though, and he wanted a pity brunch.

“A romantic date?” Janos asked. He was being rather thick today, Charles thought. “With a girl? Moira?”

“That’s usually what those words mean, yes.” Charles leaned forward between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat. “Why do you ask?”

Emma sent Janos a warning look, but Janos ignored her, shrugged, and said, “I always thought you were gay.”

Charles felt like someone hit him in the head with a heavy book. Possibly an encyclopaedia. He leaned back again, very slowly, as if not to disturb the thoughts whirling around in his mind. “You did?” he asked weakly. “Did you, Emma?”

“It’s not my place to say.” She was glaring daggers at Janos, though.

He turned to Raven. “Do you think I’m gay?”

“A little bit,” she said, and stroked his hair. “Are you attracted to men?”

“I’m... I... Well, I suppose, sometimes.” But he was a young man going through puberty. Hormones going wild and so forth.

“Well, what do you think about when you jerk off?” Raven asked, still matter-of-fact.

Charles fell sideways into the window. He didn’t usually think about anything specific, just people... pleasing him... He could barely think it in his own head, let alone say it out loud.

“Some of us can hear you thinking and would prefer not to,” Emma reminded him.

Oh, right. He dragged up his shields again, which had fallen in his shock. He had had idle fantasies about men... but he fantasied about women, too, and fantasies were just that.

“Have you really never considered this?” Raven asked kindly, still stroking his hair. “I thought you just didn’t want to admit it, which is totally understandable. But you haven’t even thought about it?”

Charles was beginning to think he was completely stupid. Or, to be more precise, completely clueless. “I’ve just never... Most people don’t interest me, so I’ve never had to actually consider a real-life relationship before. Thank God we’re already on our way to brunch.”

“It’s things like that,” Janos said from the front seat.

“Shut _up_ , Janos,” Emma snapped, but Charles just started laughing, and couldn’t be calmed down until they were at brunch, and hardly even then.

-

By the end of brunch, Charles had decided that he was attracted to men and women, and that he had wanted to be attracted to Moira more than he really was, and she certainly wasn’t attracted to him.

“So, let’s stop talking about it now,” Emma said, gesturing for the check. “And please never say the word ‘attracted’ again.”

Raven patted his hand and said, “We’re very proud of you. You’re still an idiot, though.”

“Yes, I am. And I think we should all have a drink!” He wouldn’t be his mother’s son if he hadn’t thought to bring a flask. Emma refused, so he ordered three orange juices for himself, Raven, and Janos, and spiked them liberally with his mother’s finest vodka.

“To self-discovery, as belated as it is!” he said, holding his glass high. Emma clinked her tea mug and the rest of them drank, and the afternoon began to look very bright.

-

He invited Moira over to play chess. It was much more fun, this time, now that he felt relaxed around her, and she responded in kind.

At one point, Charles made a joke about how she could have the pick of the school, and she paused, rolling one of his captured pawns between her hands.

“I’m actually sort of seeing somebody,” she said, not quite looking at him. “Sean Cassidy.”

Charles laughed out loud, because he was the blindest person in the world. “That’s brilliant, Moira. Sean’s very nice, I wholeheartedly approve.” He grinned at her, completely genuinely, and she grinned back.

“He has a good opinion of you, too,” she said. “Something about how you two had a transcendental conversation at a party a while back.”

Charles furrowed his brow, thinking back, and then remembered the hazy talk they had at Angel’s party. “Oh, right. Yes, we did, although I confess I don’t remember much of it, just good feelings.”

Moira smiled. “Checkmate,” she said, all of a sudden.

Charles threw both of his hands in the air in defeat. “You should play Erik, you’re both so good at completely destroying me.” He hadn’t seen Erik since the night before, which was odd; he was usually unavoidable.

When Moira left, Charles texted him, just asking where he was, but he got no response.

-

Charles’s good mood didn’t last long. His driver’s test was scheduled for Monday after school, and though he felt confident when he pulled in to the DMV, the endless questionnaires about his telepathy began to drag him down. He had to sign a contract promising not to control his tester’s mind or face the consequences, and even then, the man who came out to test him was wearing one of those hideously ugly helmets they made to block psionic waves. They weren’t perfect, especially for telepaths as strong as Charles; he could still feel the tester’s basic feelings and some clumsy impression of thoughts, so he dutifully put up his shields as best he could.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it,” Charles said, as they got into the Mercedes.

“Yes.” The man pulled down on his helmet, as if he were afraid it would fly off at any moment. “Turn left up here.”

It didn’t actually go as well as Charles had hoped. He hadn’t practiced all that much, because he assumed he would be good enough, but the tester’s bad mood only plummeted as Charles took a clumsy turn, cut someone off as he changed lanes, and rolled onto the curb during his parallel park.

“That’s enough.” The man scribbled something down on his clipboard. “We’re going back to the DMV. You failed.”

He said it just like that, without frills or warning. Charles’s mind came to a grinding halt. “What?” he said, stupidly. “Just like that?”

“Just like that. And don’t try to mess with me, I’ve got it here on my clipboard!”

“Do you really think I would?” Charles snapped. “Even though I’ve answered all your questionnaires, and signed your contracts, and even though you’re wearing that stupid helmet, you still think that I’m going to try to cheat my way to a license?”

“I don’t expect much from your kind!” the man yelled. “We’re going back to the DMV, _now_.”

Charles briefly fantasized about telling the man to get out of his car and making him walk back, but his mother had raised him too polite. He felt like his chest was going to burst open with anger the whole way, but they made it back without breaking the stony silence. Charles killed the engine.

“Thank you for your time, sir,” he said, dying a little on the inside with every word.

“You can try again in four weeks,” the man said, and walked away.

-

Charles parked the Mercedes (without destroying any of the garden, he noted savagely) and walked inside. He was numb, all the way through; he wasn’t sure if he was more upset by the failure or the man’s prejudice. Either way, he wanted to collapse onto some soft surface and pass out for several hours.

Raven and Erik were on the back porch, talking animatedly about something. Erik was eating an apple pie straight from the tin. Charles just stood there, not saying anything, until they noticed him.

“How’d the test go?” Raven asked, bouncing to her feet and coming over to him.

“I failed, actually,” he said. “And then the man accused me of using my telepathy to pass.”

Erik put his fork down on the patio table, it was a curly mess. “I didn’t actually try, Erik,” he said, assuming that was what Erik was upset about. “I’m content to be judged on my merits, as well.”

“That’s not —” He stood, staring at Charles. “I’m sorry.”

Charles just shook his head. “It’s fine.” He went back inside, barely conscious that Raven was following him until she sat down next to him on the couch.

“You’ve had a really rough few days,” she said. “And I don’t want to pile on —”

“What is it?” Charles asked. Maybe Raven had something that would distract him. A scheme. A match to make. A club to start, finally. Anything to get away from his mind right now.

“I’m totally not still mad at you about the Angel thing, but you never did buy me anything offensively expensive,” Raven said, her tone light and cajoling. Charles sat up straighter.

“Is there something you want?” he asked, thinking about going shopping, how nice and distracting that would be.

“No, I thought of another way you could make it up to me.” She bit her lip, suddenly shy. “There’s someone else I like.”

“Oh?” Charles said, feeling better immediately. “Name him. Or her. I’ll do my utmost to —”

“It’s Erik.” Raven glanced out the window, where Charles knew Erik was still sitting, eating that damnable pie. “I know it’s weird, because he’s like your step-brother —”

“He’s not, really,” Charles said. They had hardly ever been, after all. After the two months of their parents’s marriage, they had hardly ever spent any real time together, until now, of course.

“But I think he likes me, too.” She flushed, touching her hair self-consciously. “Could you help me? Just put in a good word.”

“How do you know?” Charles asked. There was a strange feeling creeping through him. He was finding it difficult to speak.

“That I like him? Or that he likes me?” Raven raised her eyebrows.

“Both. Either.” Charles tried to smile. “For my own education.”

“Really? Okay. I think about him a lot, and I feel... well... good when I’m with him. And he looks at me in this way... And he touches me a lot.” She huffed, frustrated. “Sorry, it’s hard to explain. You just know when you feel it.”

“It’s strange,” Charles blurted out, no longer thinking at all. “Strange that you like him. He’s such a grouch. He’s so serious all the time, and you’re so fun.”

“We have fun together,” Raven insisted.

“And he likes guys,” he continued, feeling like he was coming closer and closer to disaster but not knowing how to avoid it. “Maybe not exclusively. But really, all he does is go to his stupid Mutant Defense meetings and study, and you —”

“And I what, Charles?” He had gone to far. It was the same feeling as when he had first seen Erik, in the kitchen, and said something about his family. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing, I just think it’s _strange_ , the idea of you two together.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, fine. I don’t even know why I asked for your help in the first place. It’s not like you know anything useful. You know, maybe Erik was right about you. Lots of ideas, none of them good.” She stood up and walked away without looking back. He thought about shouting something after her, but he had no idea what he would say. He couldn’t defend himself, but he wouldn’t apologize, either.

He glanced outside at Erik, but he had disappeared. He hoped fervently he hadn’t heard any of his fight with Raven.

Well, he could still go shopping alone.

-

Charles walked all the way to Rodeo Drive and still couldn’t figure out what he was so worked up about, though he barely trusted his own judgement at all. He had been wrong about Angel, and Moira, and now he was fighting with Raven again, one of his closest friends. One of his two closest friends.

He certainly wanted Raven to be happy. Why didn’t he jump at the chance to help her? He and Erik were friendly. He wouldn’t begrudge either of them happiness.

He despondently examined leather shoes, propelling salespeople away from him with much less grace than he usually did.

If he wanted Raven to be happy, why didn’t he want her to date Erik? He did know Erik better, and he really didn’t think they’d be a good fit. Maybe just as friends...

He selected the least annoying salesperson, dragged her over, and asked to try on a pair of boots in a 10.

He could see why Raven liked Erik, if he thought about it. He was classically handsome, Charles supposed, and smart. He even made jokes, which could be funny even when they made him sound like a psychopath. And he was intense, and brooding. Some people liked that. Catherine Earnshaw, for one.

The boots didn’t look right on him. Charles wasn’t surprised; today was not his day. He wandered back out of the store.

Erik needed someone who could keep up with him, challenge him. Not that it was any of Charles’s business. If Erik liked Raven, then they should be together. Who was Charles to stand in the way?

He sat down on a bench, tired and confused. He wanted to stand in the way, though, rather desperately. Because...

Oh. He stood up from the bench suddenly, as if someone had spoke aloud to him, or he had just sat in something wet. He didn’t want Raven with Erik, because _he_ wanted to be with Erik.

The shoppers walking by were giving him odd looks. He felt dizzy, probably from standing up so quickly, possibly from realizing he had somehow fallen in love with Erik.

-

The walk back to the house was hardly any easier. He understood now — the jealousy, the longing, the fear — but he still had no idea what to do.

It was almost embarrassing how easily he recalled every conversation he had with Erik; he flipped through them in his mind, looking for clues.

 _I think you have a lot of potential, if only you’d bother to do something with it._

 _Your good intentions are simply adorable... Why don’t you try doing something not entirely selfish for once?_

Well, if he had learned anything in the past few weeks, it was that he was a very fallible, if gifted, human being. Maybe Erik was right, maybe Charles’s new project should be his own life, find some way of turning it into a more positive direction, focus his energy on helping other people. Obviously things weren’t working out the way they were.

He went home and went straight up to his room. He tried to go to bed early, to have a fresh start for the next day, but all he could think about was that night after the concert, Erik’s face brushing against the back of his hand.

Pathetic, he thought, wishing he could block out his own mind, his stomach all tied up in knots.

-

Charles tried to rush out of the house the next morning and avoid everyone, but of course he ran into Erik coming up the stairs. “Good morning,” Erik said, pausing and leaning against the railing.

Charles could only stare. Had he always looked like that? Had his face always looked like that? And his shoulders? His mouth went very dry, but he managed to choke out a “Good morning” in response.

Erik raised one of his eyebrows. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Charles made himself stop staring and just rushed away instead of answering, not trusting himself to use words anymore.

Emma was idling at the curb, doing something on her phone, but she stopped the second Charles sat down. _What’s wrong with you?_ she asked, sending him her impression of his mind: whirling and hot and aching.

Charles drew his shields up, but his hands were still shaky and damp. _You wouldn’t believe me if I told you._

-

It was Mr. Muñoz who gave Charles the idea in the first place. He was talking about hate crimes against mutants -- just the week before, a family of mutants had their house burned down, and over the weekend, a mutant boy was beat almost to death. He looked so sad, standing at the front of the class, wringing his hands.

Charles raised his hand before he even realized it. “Mr. Muñoz, how can I help?”

-

Technically, Charles did end up creating a school club, the Mutant Support League, mostly for school funding and other bureaucratic nonsense. The main thrust of the project was initially to raise enough funds to pay for Bobby Drake’s medical bills, which were in the tens of thousands of dollars, but Charles took care of that almost by himself, and then they were onto the Pryde family. And then everything just kept getting bigger.

Charles’s big food-and-clothing drive was early Monday morning, so he spent most of Sunday ransacking the kitchen and the linen closets for anything Sharon wouldn’t miss. He had been effectively avoiding Erik for nearly two weeks now; they hadn’t played chess or hung out, only saw each other at meals. Charles was very busy with the MSL after all, and Erik’s face never got easier to look at.

Unfortunately, he had to walk past the open dining room door to bring all the boxes out to the front hall, and he dropped more than one of them, wincing at the noise. Sharon finally called him into the room, and he went, taking his box of canned goods as protection.

“Yes, Mother?” he said. He was sweating a little bit; boxes of down comforters were heavier than they should be. Erik was sitting to Sharon’s right, watching.

“What are you doing?” she asked, exasperated.

“Well, it’s our big collection drive tomorrow, and we have so much stuff we don’t use. I’m putting it all in the foyer until Azazel can come by and pick it up in his SUV.” Charles smiled, willing his mother to let him go.

“What is your drive for?” Sharon asked. Some of the other lawyers were paying attention now. Charles finally put the box down, his arms aching.

“It’s the Mutant Support League’s newest initiative. A lot of homeless shelters and soup kitchens won’t even take mutants in, and the ones that do are severely under-funded and under-staffed.” He took a deep breath, trying to keep from looking at Erik. “Since we’re the only primarily mutant high school in the area, I thought it was our duty to help out.”

Sharon was shocked, but let him go again.

Erik appeared to question him when he was elbow deep in the upstairs linen closet. “What’s the Mutant Support League?” he asked.

“It’s a club I started. Initially it was to raise money to pay for Bobby Drake’s hospital bills, and then to get the Pryde’s back on their feet, but then — do you know how many crimes are committed against mutants in this city?” Charles shook his head. If he just kept talking about the MLS and kept his shields up, he’d be okay. “It’s disgusting. We have a responsibility to our fellow mutant, to help them out.”

Erik nodded and didn’t ask any more questions, but took the box down for Charles when it was full. “You know, I could take some of this stuff in my truck, and you could put the rest in the Mercedes and we’d probably fit it all.”

Charles’s heart sank. The truth was going to come out sooner or later. Sharon hadn’t noticed yet, though, which had given him false confidence. “Well, that’s not necessary. Azazel already agreed to come, it’s really no problem. Plus, you’re busy helping Sharon, and I’m a terrible driver. Wouldn’t want any of the donations to fall out of the trunk!” He laughed nervously.

Erik narrowed his eyes. “Did something happen to the Mercedes? I didn’t see it out front.”

“No, no, nothing happened to it, really, it’s in perfect condition. Don’t worry!” He made to walk around Erik and walk back upstairs, but Erik caught him. Charles tried to focus on the situation, and not Erik’s warm hand on his shoulder, the first time they’d touched in... a long time.

“If you crashed it, I can probably fix it,” Erik said. “Not perfect, but enough for Sharon, until we take it to a mechanic.”

Charles snorted in disbelief. “You think I totaled my Mercedes and then secreted it away somewhere? You think that’s what happened?”

Erik looked surprised. “Is it not?”

“ _No._ ” He shook Erik’s hand off, trying to be casual. “But either way, I don’t have it any more, so Azazel is coming to get the boxes.” He practically ran to the stairs, but he heard Erik following him.

“Did it get stolen?” Erik had those damnably long legs, and caught up with him at the top of the staircase. “What happened to it? You can tell me.” He put both his hands on Charles’s shoulders; Charles shivered, and tried to pull away again, but Erik held him fast.

“If you must know.” Charles took a deep breath. “At first, the donations weren’t coming very quickly, and Bobby was in really bad shape, and he didn’t have insurance, and I was afraid the hospital would kick him out or something.”

“So?” Erik gave him a little shake, but it sounded like he already knew where the story was going.

“I knew I couldn’t get enough money from Sharon in time, so I -- well, the Mercedes had only been driven about a hundred miles, and it was in _perfect condition_.” He paused to give Erik a glower. “And I still don’t have my license so it wasn’t doing me much good, so I. I sold it. Please don’t tell Sharon, I’m afraid she’ll be cross.”

A very strange expression broke across Erik’s face. “You sold your car? To pay for some stranger’s medical bills?”

Charles tried to shake him away again, without success. “Well, he’s not exactly a stranger anymore. I thought I should go introduce myself, so I did. He’s a nice boy. He’s only fifteen. No real family to speak of.”

They stood in silence at the top of the stairs. Charles stared very hard at the side of Erik’s neck, willing away the fluttery feeling in his stomach and the ache in his chest.

“Why?” Erik asked quietly. Charles finally met his eyes and all his willpower vanished.

“Because some idiot once told me I had a lot of potential, so I thought I’d finally do something with it.” He almost looked away again, but couldn’t. “Try being selfless for once.”

He took a firm step backwards, and left Erik astonished on the stairs. When he came back through with the boxes of his clothes, Erik was gone.

-

He cornered Raven the next day during Skills. They had been more or less pretending to be friends since they fought after Charles’s driving test, and Charles was sick of it.

“Can we talk about this?” he asked finally, out of the blue. Emma excused herself rapidly. “I’m really very sorry. I was a horrible friend again and there’s no reason —”

“No, Charles.” Raven seized his hand; she seemed as eager as he was to break the tension. “I’ve been trying to work up to apologizing to you. I was so mean —”

“Only because I was being an asshole.” Charles felt the back of his neck heat up. “If you still want Erik...” It’d be just as easy to saw open his sternum and rip out his heart, but he’d do it. It wasn’t like he could have Erik.

“No, no. I shouldn’t... it was just a passing thought.” She stared down at her tennis shoes. Charles waited, watching her face; she had been wearing a distinctly blue sheen to her skin, a red touch in her hair, recently. She was beautiful. “The reason I’ve been missing lunch, it wasn’t to avoid you. Or at least, not just to avoid you. I actually went to Science club.”

Charles laughed in shock. “Hank McCoy? Really?”

Raven shrugged. “He understands... me. Or he tries. He’s a very eager learner.” She leered at Charles, who clapped his hands over his ears.

“Please don’t talk about having sex with Hank McCoy, _please_ don’t talk about having sex with Hank McCoy --”

Raven hugged him suddenly, almost knocking the wind out of him. “I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you, too. I’m really going to try to be less of a complete idiot from now on.” Over her shoulder, Logan approached angrily, but Charles couldn’t stop smiling.

“Can I join your club?” Raven asked, when she pulled away.

“Of course! We always need new members. In fact, I have just the project for you --”

Charles saved his ideas for lunch, because Logan’s yelling drown out everything he was trying to say.

-

Charles caught his mother alone in her office, a rare opportunity, a few days later. He came in, with the excuse of bringing her a cup of tea, and then, steeling himself, sat in the plush leather armchair across from her desk. “Mother? I.”

He knew what he wanted to say, but couldn’t find the specific words he needed. When he didn’t continue, Sharon dropped the papers she was reading onto her desk and took off her glasses. “What is it, Charles?”

“I like... a guy...” he said, very slowly, watching for her reaction. One of her eyebrows twitched.

“And I suppose he doesn’t feel the same way, or you wouldn’t be here talking to me.” She took a careful sip of tea, focusing on him singularly in a way she nearly never did. Charles felt warm, and also a bit like an insect.

“The thing is, well, I’m quite sure that I’m not -- he’s just not exactly _like_ me. He cares about the world and justice and such.” Charles wrung his hands anxiously in his lap, feeling as if Sharon would figure out at once who he was talking about.

If she had, she didn’t show it. “Charles, what is it exactly that you’re worried about?”

“When I talk to him, I just feel a bit, well, shallow.” He grimaced.

“Charles.” He didn’t look up until he heard her stand up and come around to the other side of the desk. She held his head almost tenderly, although her hands were very cold. “Charles, you are a wonderful boy. If this cretin makes you think any less of yourself, he’s not worth your time.”

The ache in his chest lessened somewhat. “Thank you.” He stood up and kissed her on the cheek.

“Is it someone I know?” Sharon asked, as he headed for the door. He turned sharply. She had a mysterious smile on her face.

“I think we’ve had enough parent-child bonding for one night,” Charles said, and quickly left.

-

Charles had just dragged himself out of the shower and put on some pajamas, ready to pass out, when someone knocked quietly at his door. He knew it could only be Erik, and supposed he had to answer it; the light in his bedroom was clearly on, and Erik had seen him come in earlier that evening.

“Hello,” Charles said brightly, swinging the door open. He forced himself to keep his face normal, but it was a struggle. Erik was biting his lip. “How can I help you?”

“Chess?” Erik said simply. “Unless you were about to go to bed.” His eyes flickered down and away from Charles’s face briefly.

“Well, I sort of was.” He wavered, twisting the doorknob in his hand. On the one hand, it was unbearable to think of sending Erik away. On the other hand, it was unbearable to think of being in his presence.

“You’ve been avoiding me, though,” Erik said. Charles opened his mouth but didn’t protest it. Erik nodded with a grim expression. “So, will we play?”

Charles nodded and let Erik in. The chess board was still on its table, from when Charles had last played with Moira.

They set up the pieces and started playing without ceremony. Charles took one of Erik’s pawns, but then lost a knight.

“Why are you avoiding me, though?” Erik asked, staring hard enough at the board that Charles thought he might be speaking to it.

“I’ve been busy,” Charles said. He took Erik’s rook with a little noise of triumph.

“Have you?” Erik’s hand was hovering above the board. He had very nicely formed hands, Charles thought. Very long fingers. “With Moira?”

Charles huffed in amusement, and slid his bishop across the board to take Erik’s other rook. “No, with the MLS, if you must know. Moira has a boyfriend.”

“Does she?” There was that strange undercurrent again. Charles thought of the way Erik had acted the night Moira had come over, and shivered.

“Nice guy, really.” If Charles couldn’t see Erik staring at the board, he would think that he was just randomly moving pieces. He took one of Erik’s knights and hummed in dissatisfaction. “Are you letting me win?”

“No.” Erik rubbed his eyes viciously, still glowering at the board. At least this way Charles could stare at him openly. “I’m distracted.”

They kept playing in silence. Charles had an itch, underneath his skin — it was frustrating enough to be in the same room as Erik, even more so when Erik was being weird.

Charles won in a few more moves. “That was a truly pathetic showing, I must say.” He tried to sound light-hearted, but it just came out tired. “I should go to bed.”

Erik packed up the board and pieces and left without another word.

-

Charles walked home the next day. Emma had already left; he had stayed behind to talk strategy with some club members. Everyone had so many great ideas, it was painful to have to pick and choose what to devote their time and energy to.

His arms were full of binders — he didn’t know how exactly he had accumulated so much paperwork in the past few weeks, but it had happened. He would need a file cabinet soon.

A car pulled up along side him, but Charles didn’t give it a thought until the window rolled down and a man said his name. He nearly dropped all his books in surprise.

“Charles Xavier?” Charles was sure he had never seen the man before, but his voice was familiar. “Sebastian Shaw. How are you?”

Charles immediately thought of Erik’s face when he had heard Shaw’s name, the urgency in his voice when he warned Charles away from him. But he couldn’t very well run away; anyway, Shaw was in a car. “Hello, sir. How are you?” How did he know what Charles looked like?

“Can I give you a lift home? Looks like you’ve got your arms full.” His teeth were very white, his smile very wide.

“That would be lovely,” he heard himself say. He opened the door — a new Jaguar XKR — and slid into the passenger seat. He caught a glimpse of himself in the side mirror; he looked quite relaxed. That was something.

He gave Shaw his street name casually. “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Shaw, how did you recognize me?”

Shaw took a left turn, apparently comfortable navigating in the area. “Oh, Erik must have shown me a picture.” Charles doubted that, but he didn’t think it prudent to contest it. “I still haven’t got a hold of that boy.”

 _Good_ , Charles thought grimly. “Oh, who knows what he’s up to,” Charles said dryly. “Disappears for months without a call then shows up at midnight to raid the refrigerator.”

“So you’ve seen him?” There was an edge to Shaw’s voice that Charles didn’t like. “Recently?”

“I think he might have come by the house while I wasn’t there,” Charles said. Erik’s car wouldn’t be in front of the house; Sharon made him park around back because the pick-up was so offensively ugly. It would be just Charles’s luck, though, if today was the one exception —

They pulled onto Charles’s street. The pick-up was nowhere in sight. “It’s the white one with the columns, down the end,” Charles said. Shaw pulled up to the curb. “It was nice to meet you in person,” Charles said, which was the most outrageous lie he ever told.

“You, too, Charles. Let me give you my card.” Shaw fished his wallet out and handed Charles a simple off-white business card. Charles tucked it away in his jacket pocket without looking at it. “We should have lunch some time. Maybe Erik will even come out.” He grinned again, with too much teeth.

“Splendid. Thank you so much for the ride.” Charles gathered his things and stepped out of the car, his fear still not abating.

“Oh, and Charles?”

He turned, smiled again at Shaw. “Yes?”

“Tell Erik I’m looking for him. If you see him.” Shaw nodded and drove away. Charles waited at the curb until Shaw was out of sight, and then ran into the house.

He went straight up to Erik’s room, dropped his binders and bag on the floor outside, and pounded on the door. It swung open at once, Erik looking at him in surprise, actually answering the door in person for once.

“What is it?” he asked.

Wordlessly, Charles took the business card from his pocket and held it up for Erik’s inspection. He thought that Erik would be mad at him, tell him to watch his back and send him away; he didn’t expect all the color in Erik’s face to completely drain away, his eyes to widen in palpable horror.

“He found you?” he said, which was an odd way of putting it.

“He gave me a ride home.” The next thing Charles knew, Erik was hugging him: it was a strange but not at all unpleasant experience, although there could be a bit less pressure. It felt like Erik was trying to crush Charles, and maybe he was. He was muttering, too, so fast Charles could hardly make out the words.

“You are such an idiot, why did you get in his car, I told you not to, who knows what he could have —” Abruptly, Erik released him, red-faced. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s —” Charles couldn’t seem to catch his breath. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t mean to — I didn’t think you would be so worried about me.”

Erik nodded. He didn’t offer any explanation, but didn’t seem to want to break the conversation. He just looked at Charles, searching his face.

This was the moment, Charles thought. There would never be another moment like this. “I worry about you, too,” he stammered. “Rather, quite a lot, actually.”

He thought he should look away then, but couldn’t. He should move away and they would continue their lives and it would be awkward, because Charles was sure that he must look love-struck, and he would pine but they’d all live, somehow —

Erik took Charles’s face in his hands and kissed him. Charles knew he must be going mad, but some part of his brain still worked, because he just kissed back, wrapped his arms more tightly around Erik’s waist, followed willingly when Erik led him away from the door and toward a wall, which he leaned Charles up against.

He couldn’t believe it, even though he could sense Erik’s mind there, the burn of it. When Erik broke away to kiss his way down Charles’s neck, he couldn’t stop himself from babbling. “You actually like me? But you hate me! You like me? How long has this been going on?”

Erik laughed into his neck, which was a truly amazing sensation. Charles dug his fingers into Erik’s shoulders, overwhelmed in a good way. “I haven’t been coming around to see Sharon.” The tops of his ears were red, Charles noticed when he bit down on his ear lobe. Erik was gasping; Charles was glad that he was as out of sorts as Charles was.

“This is real,” Charles murmured, kissing Erik again. He couldn’t believe anything. He knew nothing about the world. The thought was strangely comforting this time, if it meant he could still be surprised like this.

He pushed Erik toward the bed, or rather onto it; Erik sat down and pulled Charles onto his lap. “Wait, wait,” he whispered, biting the edge of Erik’s jaw. He kept thinking of more and more things he wanted to do, all the things he had fantasized about for the past few weeks, but he needed to get Erik’s shirt off _now_. “C’mon,” he said; he had the hem of Erik’s shirt under his armpits and yanked at it until Erik got his hands out of Charles’s hair long enough for Charles to get his shirt off all the way.

“You should never wear shirts,” Charles said, drawing his hands down from Erik’s shoulders to his abs and then back up. His chest felt as good as it looked.

Erik laughed, giving him another one of those looks, awed and happy and eager. “If you’d like,” he said. His entire face was flushed, and his neck, and his ears. Charles was fairly sure no one had ever looked sexier in the history of the world, and he had done that. He made Erik look that way.

He climbed back into Erik’s lap and bit into the muscle of his shoulder. Erik’s hands slid from his sides down to the waist of his jeans, hovered there for a minute as Erik sucked on Charles’s lower lip, and then slid under Charles’s shirt and undershirt. Erik actually gasped when he touched Charles’s skin, which made Charles giggle and try to get even closer.

“Why do all your shirts have buttons,” Erik mumbled unhappily. Charles kissed his cheek and his eyebrow and the side of his nose, feeling a bit delirious.

“I’m a mature and professional young man,” Charles said, or tried to say, but Erik nuzzled at his throat and he became temporarily incoherent.

Erik had his shirt off his shoulders a moment later, pulled his t-shirt off a second later. Charles shivered, feeling very exposed, but it was worth it to have Erik’s hands on his bare skin, Erik’s chest against his. “Oh, my,” he said, and wriggled forward onto Erik’s lap, and Erik huffed and thrust up, and Charles nearly fell sideways onto the bed.

Erik pulled back his head, but kept his arms steady around Charles’s waist. They stared at each other, insanely, both panting. “Sorry,” Erik whispered.

“No, I. I just don’t want to break my head open or anything.” Charles stroked the soft skin behind Erik’s ears.

“It’s not that far a fall. We’re about a foot off the floor.”

“Well, yes. But I did like —”

“I don’t know what you want —”

“Just —” Charles laughed, and pushed Erik back so he could crawl past him, sitting at the head of the bed. He was still wearing his shoes, so he took them off then, and then his socks. Erik watched him with that same reverent expression. “Come here. Please.”

Erik crawled over, between Charles’s legs, touched his mouth. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for,” he said, slowly, though he looked like he wanted nothing more to lunge at Charles. “We have time.”

Charles rolled his eyes, grabbed Erik around the chest and pulled him up. “Thank you, you’re very gentlemanly. I’ll let you know if you’re offending my virtue.”

“You are so —” Erik didn’t finish his sentence, but did lunge forward, pressing Charles down into the mattress and kissing him.

He seemed content with that, keeping his hands way above the belt, but Charles was painfully hard and wasn’t going to let Erik get away with treating him like a blushing virgin (even if he was one). He hooked one of his legs over one of Erik’s, and ground up.

Erik groaned and temporarily stopped kissing Charles, which Charles took as a good sign, so he did it again. “You,” Erik growled, and finally, finally, grabbed Charles’s hips and thrust down. Charles’s head rolled back, and Erik took that opportunity to bite down on his throat again.

Charles wanted to laugh but didn’t have the breath for it. Instead, he pushed at Erik’s shoulder until he rolled over onto his back. He stayed on his side, grinning stupidly at Erik, and slid his hand down Erik’s chest, and grabbed at the button. “May I?” Charles asked, absently running the thumb of his other hand across Erik’s cheekbone. That face.

“Yes,” Erik said, sounding strangled and just grasping at Charles’s sides.

Charles unbuttoned his jeans and drew down the zipper. “Well, this at least I know how to do,” he said, nipping at Erik’s ear as he slid Erik’s boxers down and curled his hand around Erik’s cock.

“You might want to,” Erik panted, his hands gripping Charles’s waist even tighter, his legs falling open. “I have... lube, somewhere.”

“No need,” Charles said cheerfully. Things hadn’t really changed all that much between him and Erik, since he was getting so much pleasure from torturing him (although the nature of the pleasure had changed). He took his hand off Erik’s cock, making him sigh sadly, but his expression quickly changed when Charles started sucking on his fingers, running his tongue between them and across his palm with noisy enthusiasm.

“ _You_ ,” Erik repeated nonsensically as Charles finally started jerking him off. One of Erik’s hands came up into his hair and pulled his head down so they could kiss. It was kind of an awkward angle, and his wrist was starting to ache, but Erik was gasping and groaning into his mouth rather desperately, so Charles didn’t think he’d last much longer. He could also see the metal bed frame twisting in the corner of his eye, and remembered his watch burning, that night he had come to get the chess board.

“Did you think about this often?” Charles asked, trying and failing to sound innocent. “How many times have you lay here at night, and thought about me just a few rooms over, me doing this, or sucking your cock, or fucking you —”

Erik’s nails digging into his scalp was Charles’s only warning, and then Erik was coming. Charles laughed, heady with power, and wiped his hand on the sheets.

Erik pulled Charles half on top of him. Charles was happy to let him catch his breath, and more than happy for the opportunity to press kisses onto Erik’s collarbone, but he couldn’t keep from grinding down on Erik’s thigh.

“Wait.” Now he rolled Charles onto his back, wiped up the come on his stomach with the corner of a sheet. He slid down Charles’s body, his chest heavy between Charles’s legs as he kissed his stomach, grazed his teeth on his hipbone, and slowly unbuttoned his jeans. “What I most thought about,” he said, giving Charles a warm, teasing look, “was this.”

He pulled Charles’s jeans and boxers down, and slid Charles’s cock into his mouth, his hand gripping the base tightly. Charles felt like he had been hard for years, if not longer; he could just barely keep from thrusting up.

“I’m not going to last...” Charles gripped the bed frame with both hands; it was still fairly malleable, he noted with a thrill.

Erik pulled off for a moment, grinned up at him. “That’s fine. I’ll just have to do it again.” Charles covered his face with his hands, suddenly feeling unbearably raw and giddy, thinking about how many more times they could do this. “And put your hands in my hair. If you like.”

Charles didn’t need to be told twice. Erik’s hair was just long enough to be properly gripped, and he even gave it a gentle tug, for which he was rewarded by Erik gasping around him.

Charles was right — he didn’t last much longer. He tried to pull Erik off, but Erik just squeezed his wrist with his free hand, and kept sucking as Charles came.

Erik crawled back up to Charles’s side, panting heavily. “You were in my head. When you. Well.”

Charles froze, groping around for his mental shields, which, if they had been real shields, would have been slightly more effective at keeping out intruders than a basket full of kittens at the moment. “Oh, no, I’m sorry.” Of course, he would find a way to ruin this, too. He braced himself for Erik’s anger.

“No, it was brilliant.” The look Erik gave him was so bright and warm that Charles could hardly stand it. He kissed him once and then burrowed his face into Erik’s neck. “I’m never leaving. Neither of us are ever leaving this bed,” he ordered.

“That’s fine with me.” Erik stroked Charles’s hair off his sweaty forehead. “How long have you...”

“Ages,” was all Charles said, because his whole self-discovery process had been fairly embarrassing and ridiculous, and there was no need to relive the details. “I thought you wouldn’t have me, because I was a selfish and have a trust fund.”

“Is that why you sold the Mercedes?” Erik asked. Charles blushed.

“I sold the Mercedes to pay for Bobby Drake’s medical bills!” he insisted, but then added, “I may have been partially inspired by you.”

Erik nuzzled at his throat again, humming contentedly. “I would have had you, either way. I would be your long-suffering kept man, shining your shoes and waxing your cars.”

“Please, I could pay a professional to do those things.” He scratched at the back of Erik’s neck. “You don’t know anything about maintaining a luxury vehicle.”

Charles was sure that Erik kissed him them to keep him from saying something horribly stupid, but that was fine.

-

Much later, after the maid had come to knock on Erik’s door to see if he was coming down for dinner, and if he knew where Charles was, while Charles was trying to get his pants back on, he found the crumpled business card.

He pressed it flat, stared at it: it looked so innocuous. Sebastian Shaw, consulting, with a few numbers and an email address. “I should give him a call, thank him for getting me laid.”

Erik looked terrified in the moment before he realized Charles was joking. “He’s never going to see you again.” He buttoned Charles’s shirt back up for him, his jaw tight.

“What did he do to you?” Charles asked quietly.

Erik pressed his forehead against Charles’s. “Can you — I can’t explain, can you look?” He took Charles’s hand and pressed it flat against his own temple.

Charles was shocked. Maybe once before in his life had someone actually requested that he read their mind. “Are you sure?”

Erik nodded; Charles let his shields down and slipped into Erik’s mind, the steel walls gone. He didn’t have to search: Erik was pressing the memories at him. Charles forced himself to look at them all, even though one was only worst than the next.

He finally broke away, and buried his face in Erik’s chest. “I’m so sorry. What does he want from you now?”

“He’s in charge of my inheritance until I turn twenty-one, I assume he’s trying to find a way to keep it.” He sighed. “I don’t give a fuck about the money, I just don’t want him to get what he wants. I was planning on completely avoiding him for the next six months.”

“That should be easy, since I’m not letting you out of bed, let alone out of the house.” He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to put it to rights. Erik’s expression suggested he was fighting a losing battle. “And I’m sure Sharon could do something — oh, is that why you wanted to help her with the case? You could have just asked, she adores you.”

“Maybe I was trying to impress Sharon. Maybe I want to become a lawyer. Or maybe I wanted to lurk around the house and debauch any handsome sons Sharon had lying around.” Erik tugged at Charles’s hair, promptly undoing all the work Charles had done.

Sharon shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Why am I the only one in the dining room?”

Charles smirked and opened the door. “You have a hickey, by the way,” he said, and ducked out.

-

 **Epilogue**

When Mr. Summers kept him after class a few months later, Charles assumed it was because he hadn’t been paying attention again, and so prepared his best repentance face.

However, Mr. Summers didn’t start yelling, which was odd. Charles risked a peek into his mind, and couldn’t control the resulting smile.

“You’re not supposed to use your powers outside of Skills Development, Xavier,” Mr. Summers grouched. “And especially not on a teacher.”

“Congratulations,” he said, bouncing on his toes. “When’s the big day?”

Mr. Summers took something from his desk drawer, and handed it to Charles, very reluctantly. It was a small white envelope, which Charles nearly tore in half in his haste.

The invitation was very sleek — white and navy blue, crisp edges, san serif font. “Not that I don’t appreciate this, because you can’t possibly know how excited I am,” Charles said, holding the card reverently in both hands. “But I don’t think you’re inviting other students, are you?”

“Hell no.” Mr. Summers grimaced. Charles wondered if he was going to be fried up by laser beams. “Listen, Darwin and I know... You weren’t exactly subtle about it. We know you set us up. And I think it was for a better grade in my class, but either way.” He sighed. Charles wondered how much of this speech Mr. Muñoz had prepared for him. “This is our way of saying thanks.”

“Can I hug you?” Charles asked. It felt appropriate, but he had learned not to trust his own judgement in these situations.

“ _No_. Get out.” Mr. Summers actually pointed imperiously to the door, but Charles had the good sense not to laugh.

He stopped in the doorway, remembering something and unable to resist. “Is Logan coming?” he asked, and Mr. Summers’s pale-faced horror was worth the barrage of cursing that followed him down the hall.

-

The wedding was on a Saturday in late spring. Charles felt very old, sitting in his suit watching his teachers get married. He had legally been an adult since his eighteenth birthday, several months ago, but this was the first time he actually felt like one.

Erik had his hand propped up on the back of Charles’s chair. He was bored, but Charles could sense the undercurrent of contentment in his mind that Charles thought he might be partially responsible for.

Erik must have felt him in his mind, because his thoughts suddenly turned pornographic. Charles hoped that no one noticed him blushing, and he gave Erik a hard mental pinch (Emma had finally taught him how).

Seeing Mr. Muñoz and Mr. Summers kiss was still odd, but Charles couldn’t deny how sweet the whole thing was. He and Erik ducked out early in the reception, and wandered back to where they had parked the pick-up truck, several blocks away, Erik’s arm hooked around Charles’s neck.

“You’re quiet,” Erik said as he started the engine. “Please tell me you’re not thinking about our wedding.”

“I’ve only _just_ turned eighteen, you can’t think you can lock me down this early.” Charles rolled down his window and stuck his arm out. It was the most beautiful day, warm and still with a clear sky. “No, I was thinking about how lucky I was to go to a mutant high school, and have mutant teachers. It must be horrible to be a mutant in a normal school. How alienating. Mutant drop-out rates are nearly twice those of humans, nearly quadruple if the mutation is visible.”

“What makes me think you have an idea to solve all that?” Erik asked, unabashedly fond.

“Because I overflow with good ideas every day.” His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. “Emma wants to have dinner. Shall we?”

“Are you going to tell me the plan?”

“I’ll tell you when I’ve worked it out, I promise.” He grabbed Erik’s wrist and rubbed his thumb over his pulse point. “You’re included in it, of course. It’s part of your job.”

“Oh, are you paying me now?” Erik asked, and leaned over the gear shift to kiss him at the next red light.


End file.
